LEPIDIUM NEBRODENSE. 
weiss along the face of pathless precipices, where eyelash-hold is of the 
slightest ; and sustained by pompous measures of protection in favour 
of the commonest and most reproductive and most massively colonis- 
ing of all mountain plants. Still the reverent inquiry is made in hushed 
tones, “‘ And have you ever seen the Edelweiss ?”’ Still maidens grow 
misty-eyed at the thought of it, and after having tramped the Alps 
from end to end declare that they would die happy if only they could 
see the Edelweiss; an aspiration which proves their pedestrianism 
never to have progressed beyond the highroads of the passes, for, 
had they anywhere there diverged a hundred yards to right or left 
it would have been hard luck indeed had they not found themselves 
upon level lawns of their heart’s desire. It is necessary, indeed, to 
repeat, that in almost every range, be it of lime or granite, you have 
only to get to the open downs about 2000 feet above your hotel, to 
find matted wide carpets everywhere of Flannel-flower, sharing the 
scant and stony herbage with Aster alpinus and Anemone vernalis. 
Go higher, into the grim and stony places where the true high-alpines 
have their home; Flannel-flower has ceased completely, a species 
belonging exclusively to the levels of stone and fine poor grass at mid 
elevations on all the ridges of the world. It varies greatly in form ; 
some districts in which it abounds produce only dumpy stems and stars 
of miserable size and scanty rays; on others it grows fine and fat, till 
certain valleys produce Edelweiss so noble that, as I was once told, 
for encouragement, “ All men look your hat, if you have such an it ”— 
the “it ’’ not being the hat (which is hardly hypothetical) but the ample 
bloom of Flannel-flower with which Teutonic fashion adorns it. 
Garden forms of special amplitude have been raised from the seed which 
it so copiously produces, such as L. a. lindavicum, together, always, 
with ‘‘ majors” and “‘ grandiflorums ”’ and so forth, being selections from 
the type ; the other sub-species are more distinct, each range, almost, 
producing its own. L. sibiricum is in all parts taller, with a variety 
of its own, LD. s. altaicum; L. transylvanicum comes under the head- 
ing of L. a. lindavicum: L. himalaicum, with its under-form sikki- 
mensis, has smaller stars and bears them later in the season; and 
the most remote of all, deserving perhaps to be raised to specific 
rank of its own as Gnaphalium Sieboldu, is L. japonicum, being 
almost a tiny bush with very many more rays to the star, and 
the leaves only white beneath, but on the upper surface of a deep 
and glossy dark green. All these come as readily from seed as the 
type-species, and may be grown with as little difficulty. And see 
Appendix. 
Lepidium nebrodense, the only admissible species of its 
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