ANDROSACE. 
runners, and the roseate flowers are carried in the characteristic 
Verbena-heads of the section, on scapes of 3 or 4 inches. This species 
ranges through all the North-western Himalaya. A thing called A. 
sempervivoeides var. tibetica exscapa, from quite low, poor, hot ground 
in Kansu, is in reality the glorious A. longifolia, which, though it 
belongs to this section and carries its white flowers (one to four) in a 
head, yet imitates the habit of the Aretias in forming a dense low 
mat of leaves and almost stemless blossoms, the leaves of the rosettes 
being greenish-grey, about an inch long, perfectly hairless and smooth, 
narrow, and ending in a fat horny spine. It is perfectly beautiful, like 
a glorified white A. alpina in effect, making great carpets in the most 
improbable torrid banks. (See Appendix.) 
A. spinulifera is a most curious species of this same section, which 
came into cultivation some seasons since from Sindermann under the 
label “‘ species from Tibet.”’ Orso at least it would seem, though the 
official range for A. spinulifera is from the mountains of Yunnan up 
to Central China. At first all that is to be perceived is a tight over- 
lapping little cone of greyish-green, spiny-looking bracts, with a strayed 
old leaf or so of A. sarmentosa emerging mysteriously from the tip. 
But in time the whole unfolds into a rosette of narrow obovate foliage, 
dense with rough silvery hairs, pointed and even ending in a thorny 
tip (though this character is not very constant), and, when young, 
positively spiny. ‘The rosette forms no runners, but develops by de- 
grees into a clump, from which shoot up tall stems, very hairy, about 
6 or 8 inches in height, at the top of which unfold tight heads of a 
few large and lovely flowers, softly rose-pink with a golden eye. A. 
spinulifera has a wide range up and down its native mountains, but 
attains its finest development at about 8000 or 12,000 feet, growing 
especially magnificent on the stony grassy edges of pine-woods facing 
north. The thorny character here almost wholly disappears, and the 
mass of plants, all shimmering silver with their crystalline stems and 
heads of golden-eyed rosy blossom, make a rare effect of beauty and 
splendour against the sombre woods behind. In cultivation A. 
spinulifera has all the cheeriness that distinguishes this group; but, 
though any reasonably open rich cool soils should suit it, we might as 
well at first pursue the natural lead, and avoid giving it such torrid 
situations as would by no means come amiss to A. lanuginosa. 
A. strigillosa is really what always passes not only for itself, but 
also, in the same page of the same catalogue, for the rarer and more 
worthless A. foliosa. (This is A. foliosa, Klatt, not A. foliosa, Duby.) 
The leaves of this Anak are large and loose, about 34 inches; it has a 
running trunk as thick as a goose-quill, many-headed, and set with the 
57 
