LINUM. 
nature in rich, deep, and open soil. There is a still nobler variety in 
cultivation, L. s. afghanica ; and yet another, of special beauty, called 
L. s. Levingii, from some 11,500 feet about Pir Pangul in Kashmir. 
Linnaea borealis is not an easy treasure. Cool wood banks 
and moist rich places often suit the Twin-flower, which is, however, 
sometimes seen quite happy in sunnier ones, when once it has been got 
to start ; running about over the rocks, it forms a perfect curtain with 
long prostrate trailers, set with pairs of smali rounded shining leaves 
of bronze and green, while along their lines stand up at intervals the 
finest dainty stems imaginable, each hanging out a pair of almond- 
scented little pendulous Gloxinias freaked and lined inside the bell 
with pink. Much easier, however, than L. borealis is L. americana 
(L. canadensis), which is larger in all its parts, freer in its habit, and of 
brighter crimson in the delicate cut-velvet freakings of its bell. It 
occupies the woods of the Canadian Rockies, even as L. borealis those 
of Norway or Scotland or the deep mossy darknesses of the upper 
Engadine (a rare plant otherwise, so far south in Europe, but also 
found in some of the woods in the Valais, as, for instance, on the 
way up to Meiden). Cuttings can be struck of these, but some- 
times take a little while to get ahead; layering is more useful, for 
both will root readily along the shoots, and will also come freely 
from seed. Summer. 
Linum.—A notable race for the sunny dry banks of the garden ; 
all the Flaxes that we have are children of the hot South, and rejoice 
in warmth and sunlight and open. deep soil, rather poor and ex- 
haustively drained. All of them fill the whole summer with their 
waving galaxies of blossom, and all will come readily from seed. 
L alpinum is the only species of the centra! European ranges, where 
it may locally be seen in the southerly chains making its mild con- 
tribution of pale china-blue to the almost chaotic chorus of glory with 
which the high-alpine turf is then clamorous. It is a weakly prostrate 
thing, bowing out this way and that with its frail greyish fine-leaved 
shoots, beneath the burden of the big gentle flowers at their end, in 
loose showers, one after another throughout the summer. It is usually 
a rarity except in the districts where it abounds, as, for instance, 
in Dauphiné and the Western Graians. It is very near L. perenne, 
and has varieties of its own, L. a. obtusatum, pycnophyllum, glaucum. 
L. arboreum makes a stout tree a yard high in the rocks of Crete, 
with leaves clustered at the ends of the naked boughs, scarred where 
the old foliage has fallen. The flowers are of brilliant gold in rich 
clusters. Gardeners usually regard L. flavum as a synonym of this, 
than which nothing could be more unjust, the one being a plant of 
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