BOENNINGHAUSENIA ALBIFLORA. 
dainty with its long straightish sprays, and small oval scalloped 
foliage. 
Bidens, in a race of Composites almost uniformly coarse and 
without charm, supplies us with one lovely species in B. dahlioeides, 
from the Mexican highlands, which must be planted in warm, sheltered 
places, not too dry, in particularly poor starvation-soil, in full sun. 
Thus it will prove hardy, and show its full grace, without becoming 
lush and soft, or attaining unpleasing elevations of 2 feet or so. Pro- 
perly used and kept strung up by Spartan treatment, it makes only a 
basal tuft of unevenly-gashed leaves, from which in profusion spring 
the perfectly naked stems, each carrying a single large pink or mauve- 
pale flower like that of a Cosmos. Except in specially warm gardens it 
would be better, at all events while the plant is rare, to store its tubers 
in winter like a Dahlia’s, taking care that they are not allowed to get 
parched or shrivelled. It should be a most beautiful thing if starved. 
Biebersteinia forms a beautiful little family of Geraniads, in 
many ways more suggestive in look of the finest cluster-headed 
Polemoniums. They need careful culture in well-drained sunny poor 
soil, or in the moraine. They make almost bulbiform many-headed 
stocks, with leaves like those of a closely packed and fine Erodium, and 
the flowers, of pink or cream or yellow, are gathered into bunches at 
the top of stems that vary from one foot to two and a half in B. 
Orphanidis, to a bare 6 inches in B. odora. This last should, indeed, 
besides its sweetness, be one of the most useful as well as the most 
charming of the lot, for it occurs by springs in the Altai, and ranges 
away thence into Tibet, so that its hardiness ought not to admit of 
doubt. B. Orphanidis is the only species ever seen in cultivation, and 
that too rarely. It is found in stony glens of Greece and the Levant, 
especially in the alpine region of Kyllene, the foliage being particularly 
like that of an Erodium, and the rose-pink flowers in a dense 
cluster. JB. heterostémon, from China, has smaller blossoms, and B. 
multifida is yet another species that we await. 
Biscutella is a race of biennial Crucifers, of which the only one 
here fit for comment is the common B. laevigata of the upper alpine 
turf and stony places—a graceful thing about a foot high, with hoary- 
grey leaves and very loose spraying showers of pale golden yellow. 
This, however, is no less biennial than the rest, even if old intimacy 
induce the gardener to give it a place. JB. lucida, from the Southern 
ranges, differs chiefly in having the foliage dark-green and glossy. 
Bletia. See under Orchidaceae, where all of the race are 
gathered together, with the exception of Cypripedium. 
Boenninghausenia albiflora offers perhaps the finest example 
(1,919) 145 BR 
