IPIMEDIUM. 
possible (being small and frail in habit) to tear away when doing 
harm. Perhaps the best is H. vernicosum, which runs along with shoots 
of specially leathery glossy little leaves, and then rears up at the tips to 
carry some three or five large flowers of nearly an inch across, almost 
sitting on the ends of the sprays, and of a soft pale pink. H. crassum 
also has large bicoms, with leaves remarkably crowded, fat, thick, 
glossy, and fleshy ; H. glabellum isa copiously variable type, allied to Z. 
vernicosum, but tending to have longer runners; LH. Macropus creeps,and 
is wholly of a purplish colour, with slender stems, and pairs of rather 
distant leaves, while #. purpureum is wholly cf a blackish purple, 
except for its flowers; #. pallidiflorum, however, is a much taller 
species, growing erect, and with large white blossoms ; H. Hectori has 
a still more erect habit, but is only some 6 inches high, with narrower 
leaves, hardly toothed at all, and purple capsules; H. alsinoeides 
creeps, with pale flowers near the end of the shoots, from the axils of 
the almost untoothed leaves, and followed by capsules ciothed in 
greyish down ; L. rotundifolium creeps for a foot or so, with opposite 
sharp-toothed leaves that become alternate towards the end of the 
runners ; Z. linnaeoeides isa miniature of this, quite prostrate, with all 
the leaves opposite and only one blossom to a stem ; while H. gracilipes 
is quite pretty, perhaps half a foot tall at the most, graceful in habit 
and nearly related to H. Macropus. And, finally, E. flavum is a North 
American species, not unworthy of admission, because, though tall 
and rather leafy, in the way of a smooth and much smaller EL. hirsutum, 
its flowers, much the same in character, are of pale lemon-yellow. 
But the rock-garden establishes its claim to one species especially, 
and this is the really beautiful and gorgeous little H. obcordatum from 
the Sierras of California in Tulare County. This, from its high ledges, 
flounders forth in a mass of leafy shoots clothed in green rounded 
leaves, and ending in clusters of very large and very brilliant full- 
petalled flowers of glowing rosy-pink, in that tone which compilers 
of Rose-catalogues describe with such elegant tact as “satiny 
cerise.”’ This rare choice treasure should have its birthplace remem- 
bered, and find itself accommodated accordingly with a sunny ledge in 
perfectly light deep stony soil, or moraine. It can.readily be multiplied 
by August cuttings, and is itself at its best in July and August, forming 
a decumbent mass of shoots, 6 inches long at the most, concealed from 
view by the riot of those large and well-liking blossoms. It is quite 
hardy if not kept stagnant in winter, but is too soft and generous in 
nature to be of very long life, so that it is best to keep a stock 
perpetually going. . 
Epimedium.—The Barren-worts are all much of a muchness, 
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