MODIOLA GERANIOEIDES. 
five points of the star is lacerated into the finest possible of stiff out- 
standing fringe-work, giving the flower the effect of a whirling little 
five-pointed catherine-wheel. Of such are M. pentandra and M. nuda ; 
but M. diphylla has twin leaves dainty and scalloped, with 6-inch 
spikes of white; white, too, are the flowers of M. violacea, but on 
stems of some 18 inches—fifteen or twenty to the well-furnished spire ; 
similar in height is M. stawropetala, but here the flowers are white 
with fringes often coming violet; while M. Parryi is altogether of 
more modest scale than these last—all of which may readily be divided, 
or raised from seed. 
Modiola geranioeides, a frail 5-inch Malvad, with slender 
stems, divided leaves, and larger flowers of carmine cherry-colour 
through the later summer. It comes from North America, and should 
have a warm sunny place in light soil. (Seed.) 
Moehringia, a queer race of rock-plants, dwarf and cloudy in 
effect, erupting into a profusion of four-petalled little white stars in 
summer. The commonest is M/. muscosa, truly moss-like, and abun- 
dant in all the alpine woods ; the Southern ranges yield more essentially 
saxatile species, and all may at pleasure be cultivated in the chinks of 
the rock-work, for preference on the cooler exposures. Besides 
M. muscosa, there are M. ciliata and M. alpestris; M. sedoeides (dasy- 
phylia) hangs in masses from the grottoes of San Dalmazzo de Tenda ; 
respectively smaller and taller are WM. glauca and M. diversifolia ; 
M. glauco-virens is a specially neat tiny tuft_that shares the impene- 
trable precipices of Daphne petraea; and there are many other 
species, interesting and dainty, but quite without show: MM. 
Grisebachii, Jankae, papulosa, pendula, polygonoeides, Ponae, and 
villosa—not all of them easy to come by, but all equally admissible 
to chinks and corners, where they will behave like the small and 
fairy-like four-petalled Arenarias that they are. 
Moltkia. See under Lithospermum. 
Molucella spinosa is Ballota spinosa, a small rare nuisance 
of the Southern ranges, and tender and frightful and thorny. 
Moricandia arvensis is an unrecommendable cruciferous 
weed, from the walls and fields of the South, tall and straggling, with 
glaucous foliage and purple flowers. There are other, but no better, 
species. 
Morina, a race of valuable herbaceous plants, to be discovered 
in catalogues accordingly. Several species are in cultivation, and 
more are yet to come; all spring freely from seed, all thrive in deep 
light soil, all bloom in late summer, and all suggest a strangely 
handsome dead-nettle that has married a thistle—with a result of 
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