MERTENSIA. 
that it is a sturdy thing with a few hairs below, but bristlish higher up, 
and ample-stalked elliptic leaves drawn to a point at either end and 
smooth on the upper surface ; the stems of blue blossoms stand stout 
and erect. 
M. elongata belongs to the high places of Kashmir, but goes no 
higher than some 8000 feet, to match the 8 inches of its own stem. 
The plant is clad in short, close-pressed hairs, and the oblong basal 
leaves are 2 or 3 inches long, by an inch or so in breadth, and borne 
on long foot-stalks. The shower of blossom is handsomely furnished, 
and the flowers are tubes of deep china-blue of the most brilliant and 
delicate beauty. In the garden it thrives especially well with moisture ; 
and pot plants, after flowering, often droop and deposit seeds in the 
bosom of a neighbour, where they promptly germinate. 
M. foliosa is of deep dark-green, with thick ample foliage roughened 
at the edge, and the root-leaves often on stalks of twice their own 
length ; up among these rise many stems of about a foot, carrying a 
crowded oval cluster-shower of blue. (Moister places of Wyoming, &c.) 
i. kamtschatica is dwarf and barely erect, rough all over, with 
long-tubed flowers. 
M. lanceolata (M. alpina, Gray) lives on the plains and open places 
of Colorado and Wyoming. It has narrow paddle-shaped leaves, with 
a very minute down on their upper surface; and the whole growth, 
leaves and all, is rather fleshy, almost smooth, and glaucous-blue in tone. 
The stems are either unbranched or spray into wide rocketing heads 
of lovely clear-blue flowers. No difficulty attends its culture except 
that of slugs, from which all valuable Mertensias have to be guarded 
as a young baby from a gorilla. It is often wrongly mixed up in lists 
with M. elongata from far away in India, and sent out misleadingly 
as M. echioeides lanceolata—a preposterous attributicn. 
M. lateriflora is a lesser-flowered variety of M. Bakeri, q.v. 
M. longistyla allows little more to be said of it than that the long 
styles do indeed protrude far out of the blue tube. And it is at least 
something to know that the name is justified. 
M. maritima is our own Oyster-plant, found here and there in the 
seashore on the fringe, just out of reach of ordinary tides. None the 
less, and in spite of the elaborate pits of sea-sand that worshippers 
accordingly consider must be necessary for its salvation in the garden, 
it yet thrives much more happily and robustly in ordinary rich loam 
than ever it did in the sterile sands of the sea. At the same time, it 
is never a species of very long life, as an eye to its habit and way of living 
in nature will reveal; plants should be kept coming on from seed or 
cuttings if the garden wishes to continue enjoying its trails of foliage, 
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