LINUM. 
of darkness towards their heart, of a sheen and delicate lustre and 
lucence irresistible. Better forms than others, however, may easily 
be found in its favoured districts ; whereas in some it is so poor as to 
sink back into LD. tenuifolium—scraggy in the stem, gawky and lank of 
limb, with small starved stars of a paleness that is sickly, instead of 
being the palpitating clear loveliness of a pearl in perfect health. Let 
us then pick our plants of this Flax with pains; acquiring those of 
neat and tuited habit, especially hearty in the outline of their cups. 
But, with luck, we may even find a treasure greater yet: this is 
L. sals. nanum or prostratum, which hardly aspires to any stem at all, 
but forms a dense close mat of fur, like that of some Arenaria, over the 
face of the rock or bank, hidden from view in summer by an unending 
succession of almost stemless vases, fine and rounded as in the best forms 
of the type, and suggesting that someone has densely stuck a cushion 
of Alsine laricifolia with hundreds of flowers from Oxalis enneaphylla, 
having first squashed the oxalis-blossoms wider with his thumb. 
L. tenuifolium, though it mounts up, also descends low, and is found 
on the hottest banks of the Mediterranean ; which means that the 
choicest warmest banks of the garden are none too good for L. “ salso- 
loeides.”” This, indeed, is perfectly hardy, so long as the deep light 
soil be perfectly drained, and the situation sunny. Seed can be 
collected from abroad, but in cultivation the plant is chary of them, 
and the dwarf form can only be propagated by cuttings taken off about 
midsummer and struck with care. Like the rest, it is a sound if not 
very long-lived perennial, if its feet are kept free from persistent wet 
in winter ; and, like the rest, it cannot be divided nor even moved with 
propriety when well established, for they all make one frail crown, with 
one main root, deep and woody and slender; they greatly, therefore, 
resent disturbance, and JL. salsoloeides from its hot banks, with its 
few thirsty wiry fibres, is one of the hardest trophies to persuade into 
re-establishing itself when collected and sent home, with care no matter 
how courteous and complete. 
L. toxicwm has the merit of being odious to goats. It lives high up 
on Hermon, and makes hard stiff-boughed little clumps of some half 
a foot high or less, with sepals likewise stiff and broad and short, 
revealing the golden flowers of all the Flavum-group. 
L. velutinum haunts the upper limestone chinks of Kurdistan, where 
it forms a tight bushy mass of shoots some 2 or 4 inches tall, dense 
with very short spoon-shaped leaves, till the whole plant is a cushion 
of grey velvet, from which emerge rather close clusters of white bloom. 
L. viscosum is quite unlike these others. It is a stalwart few- 
stemmed or single-stemmed species, set with broad oval leaves at in- 
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