ASPERULA. 
from the alpine rocks of the Peloponnesus ; it sends up a multitude of 
short, frail, very leafy stems each year, not more than 3 or 4 inches long, 
forming a close mass all fluffy with the profuse grey wool that clothes 
the whole growth, stem, and narrow little leaves and all, until at last 
the flowers come forth, six to eight in a bunch at the tip of the shoots, 
appearing to sit almost upon the cobwebby grey tuffet. And these are 
the most exquisite and astonishing long trumpets of pure and delicate 
rose-pink, quite waxy and smooth in texture, especially notable too 
on their misty ash-grey ground. Beautiful as is A. arcadiensis, it 
needs the care that its appearance earns and suggests. For it detests 
excessive damp in winter, as nearly all alpine fluffers do ; and should, 
besides its perfect drainage and its light soil in a sunny corner of the 
rock-work or choice moraine, have the protection of a pane of glass 
over it after October, as if it were indeed one of the precious Aretian 
Androsaces with which its glory not unsuccessfully competes. It is 
a hard plant to propagate, rather miffy and dangerous to touch, not 
setting seed, and difficult to strike from cuttings. 
A. Boissieri is another tufty species with yellow flowers. 
A. cynanchica is the English Squinancy Wort—a spidery thing from 
hot banks, with clusters of long, pink trumpets, pretty in themselves 
- but not well balanced against the splaying bare stems, along which lie 
whorled leaves at rare intervals, so long and thin themselves as merely 
to emphasize the gaunt nakedness of the stems. However, on the 
Mont Cenis there lives a form of this which is worth cultivation in 
even the choicest dry hot place of the most choice garden. A. c. 
Jordanit makes a dear little neat clump with spraying stalks on all sides, 
not more than 3 or 4 inches long, carrying larger bunches of larger 
brighter blossoms, waxy and pink with tips of rose, most delicate and 
charming in effect, and forming quite a bouquet of bloom. 
A. Gussonii has been falsely figured by its author as A. nitida. 
It is, none the less, an Italian species of beauty and charm, after the 
same kind. 
A. hexaphylla, a rare plant from the Maritime Alps, is very pretty 
indeed, but much laxer and looser, not forming any sort of a 
cushion, but flopping here and there with fine fragile 6-inch stems, set 
at intervals with little narrow leaves in whorls of six, and then ending 
in bunches of charming pearly-pink starry trumpets. In cultivation 
it needs no attention ; one of the best pieces I know developed from 
a chance seedling in a collected clump of Saxifraga diapensioeides from 
the rocks of Tenda. The Asperula killed the Saxifrage in no time, 
and has completely occupied its bishopric ever since, in yearly 
increasing vigour. Rather larger and stouter than this, again, is 
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