DIANTHUS. 
Sternbergit, q.v., a variety of D. monspessulanus, which in itself is a 
sub-species or form of D. fimbriatus. Look up D. Sternbergii. 
D. alpester, Balb., is also D. strictus (S. and 8.), and D. integer 
(Balb.), D. integer (Vis.), this last also being known as D. brachyanthus. 
The group, cruelly variable and widespread, is also made by Paoli and 
Fioretti (whose methods never err on the side of mildness), to include 
the wholly dissimilar D. neglectus ; this, however, if only for gardening 
purposes, may well be kept apart. The aggregate of D. alpesier has 
high value in the garden, being a set of close green tuffets of small 
fine leaves, spraying out a great quantity of fine stems some 8 inches 
long, and waving pink stars at the end, in a vast profusion of small 
rosy blossoms, scentless, and either smooth at the edge or toothed, but 
never fringed. Their general resemblance is rather to some specially 
free-flowering and much smaller D. inodorus, but here the calyx is 
larger in proportion to the smallish flowers, whose effect lies in their 
mass and their graceful port, as they sway and spray in a loose spout- 
ing shower from some dark hot rock in the Cottian Alps. Here occurr- 
ing, it is a typical form of the group, D. pedemontanus. Yet another 
development that often figures in gardens and lists is D. Lereschet, a 
thing of denser habit than the type, with petals deeply toothed. 
D. alpestris, Uecht = D. speciosus, q.v. 
D. alpinus is perhaps the most precious of the race, sheeting the 
high grassy moors of the Styrian limestones with miles of bright 
foliage, distinct in its breadth, bluntness, and gloss of clear dark-green 
from any other’s; and then turning the whole hill to a blush of rose- 
crimson through July and August and September, with those full 
bearded cartwheels of brilliant colour on stems of 3 or 4 inches. It 
varies, though not very widely, and it is possible to collect some 
lovely forms peacock-eyed with purple, or smooth-edged, or larger, or 
dwarfer, or ampler than the others. There is a rather dirty pinched- 
lcoking white form, and a slightly better one from the Hochschneeberg ; 
while there I found the finest development known, D. a. Adonis, 
with abundant, large, and solid flowers, which open of a perfectly pure 
salmon-pink untouched with impurity, and so pass on in nature 
to a pure and delicate pearl-white. This proves no less vigorous than 
the type, which in our gardens ought always to be irrepressible, and 
may be seen, as at Ribston, forming a mat of glossy foliage several 
yards across from one plant. And yet the species often fails and gives 
trouble ; in all cases that I have seen, from soil too heavy and ill- 
drained. D. alpinus requires perfect drainage, but will grow robustly 
in either peat or loam, so long as plenty of lime isadministered. In the 
moraine it makes a glorious mat, and sometimes blossoms again later in 
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