EREICA. 
except in the colour of their flower-flights—plants of extreme but un- 
appreciated value for quiet shady corners of the rock-garden, where 
they will form wide masses in time, and send up in spring and early 
summer 10-inch showers, most graceful and lovely, of flowers that 
suggest a flight of wee and monstrous Columbines of waxy texture, 
and in any colour, from white, through gold, to rose and violet. Then, 
beginning later than these, appear the leaves, hardiy less beautiful 
an adornment to summer than the blossoms to spring. For these are 
of a delicious green, much divided into pointed leaflets, and borne on 
airy wiry stems. Among the best of these delightful things—for our 
own L. alpinum, a stray in some of our North-country woods, is not 
eminent in the matter of its rather small dark-red stars of bloom, 
though the leafage is as beautiful as in all—are EL. pubigerum, which 
replaces it precisely in the woods of Byzantium, but that the red 
flowers are large and evident and fine; H. nivewm irom Japan, very 
near the next (for all the Japanese species are at present in a dire 
tangle, which has led to a most unprofitable multiplication of synonyms 
in catalogues), but smaller, with waxy flowers of white ; 2. macranthum, 
notably handsome and tall and splendid, with large, long-spurred 
Orchideous-looking blossoms of creamy tone, with a variety, E. 
lilacinum or E. violacewm, of lavender tinge ;. EZ. pinnatwm (or colchicum) 
from the Caucasus, with particularly handsome short-spurred flowers 
of bright yellow, dividing into two forms or sub-species—ZF. p. elegans, 
with straight, stiffer, tall spires of bloom; and E. ochroleucum, with 
stars of sulphur yellow. EH. diphyllum from Japan is Aceranthus 
diphyllus (q.v.),a lovely little thing, while H. hexandra is Vancouveria 
(q.v.). EH. musschianum and EL. musschianum album had better be at 
present referred back to H. nivewm and EH. macranthum—E. Youngi- 
anum being also one of their synonyms; while not much more can be 
said as yet of beautiful waxy lilac #. Ikariso—a silly specific name 
indeed, being merely Japanese for the whole family. However, under 
whatever name you acquire an Epimedium, you may rely upon its 
always being of the easiest and most indestructible temper in any 
cool place ; and also, except in the case of H. coccineum and E. alpinum, 
of the most astonishing and delicate loveliness alike in form and in 
colour of its dainty crystalline flowers in spring. 
Ereica (in order, by keeping the right spelling, to get the pro- 
nunciation right—in place of the excruciating Erica, that one so often 
hears). Of heaths for the rock-garden there are not many that need 
be troubled with, HH. carnea, tetralix, cinerea, ciliaris, and Mackaiana 
being those of prime importance. Among these the winter-blooming 
tendencies of #. carnea give it ‘a quite peculiar value, to reinforce the 
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