LYCHNIS. 
soiled dampness of every warm and sheltered garden. And we now 
come to the alpine group. 
L. alpina is a neat little tuffet with a neat little head of magenta- 
pink stars in summer on stems of some 2 or 3 inches. It may be 
seen at Flannel-flower levels in the alpine turf, and on one or two 
mountains of Cumberland and Scotland. It is easy of culture in 
moist cool soil, and easily raised from seed, from all of which facilities 
the cultivator will justly augur that it is not specially fascinating, 
the Lychnids running unanimously to pinks of unpleasing chalky tone, 
light or dark, until, in the lands of the Rising Sun, they at last catch 
his fire and break into the magnificent and resounding vermilions of the 
East. There is a pretty white form of L. alpina, however; nor can 
L. lapponica be by any means dissevered from the type, unless it be 
by a slight addition of cubits to its stature. 
L. Lagascae is a plant of cliff-chinks in Spain, and a recognised 
object of cultivation and commendation in England, often because 
it is supposed to be difficult, and sometimes because it is supposed to 
be beautiful. In neither quality is it really pre-eminent ; it can easily 
be cultivated in rich and well-drained soil—that vain desideratum by 
which so many easy doers in old days acquired an undeserved prestige 
for being difficult—and it comes profusely from the seed it profusely 
sets; but in the effect, somehow, of its straggling leafy masses of blue- 
grey stems and foliage there is a curious lack of breeding and mountain 
brilliance ; the plant looks like some common little edging species 
of the Saponaria calabrica persuasion, and the effect is not lessened 
by the chalky carmine stars of blossom that appear in profusion 
all the summer, and always seem, nevertheless, alike in general show 
and individual size, rather small and mean for the lush loose floppiness 
of the general 6- or 8-inch mess, branching and diffuse, with no touch 
of alpine concision or look of refinement. 
L. nivalis is a plant from Transylvania, very much in the same line 
and with the same needs, though choicer, perhaps, and certainly rarer. 
Even as L. Lagascae appears often under Willkomm’s acknowledged 
name of Petrocoptis, so does L. nivalis often make our mouths unneces- 
sarily water by appearing undescribed (except by its price) as Poly- 
schémoné ; while yet others, alike of Lychnis and Silene, have flown 
away into the new fold of Melandryum, where those in vain desider- 
ated under their ancient names will surely be found. 
L. Preslii is a tall Andine, with flowers of magenta pink or purple. 
L. pyrenaica is a marked improvement on L. Lagascae, having the 
same habit, the same flopping stems, and the same glaucous foliage, 
but broader in the basal leaves than L. Lagascae. Its flowers, however, 
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