MYRRHIACTIS. 
M. rupicola is the Queen of all alpine Forget-me-nots, making tidy 
cushions over the upper alpine turf, hidden by domed and crowded 
heads of large flowers of the most exquisite dawn-blue. Nor does 
it ever even in cultivation show any relationship to M. alpestris, but 
preserves its own tight habit, and comes easily profusely and honour- 
ably identical from seed, though on the Alps, as it descends, the form 
begins often to fade into the taller fashions of the M. alpestris from 
which it no doubt derives, and which in turn derives from the common 
M. sylvatica down below. But what a pedigree of rapid advance- 
ment ; not the three Dudley generations, from the condemned scrivener 
to the Duke of Northumberland with a sham Sovereign in his pocket, 
could make such a boast, of ascent so high and rapid, from beginnings 
so base. In the garden WM. rupicola delights especially in the moraine, 
and there loses a certain tendency to miff away in winter, from which 
it occasionally suffers in fatter ground. But it is no unfriend nor 
stranger to our climate; its close patches of heaven may be seen 
nestling into the topmost crags in certain corries of Ben Lawers and 
Micklefell. 
M. Traversii has leathery leaves in pleasant tufts, from which issue 
many much-branched stems of 3 inches or half a foot, each unfurling 
a bristly crozier, thickly-studded with large sweet-scented blossoms of 
lemon yellow, the whole growth being in many ways like a larger and 
looser development of M. Cheesemannii. It is common in the high 
screes of the South Island up to 6000 feet, and should rush into our 
moraines accordingly with open roots. 
M. Welwitschii is not perennial and should be ignored, though 
vivid in the blue of its flowers and fairly modest in its 6-inch stature. 
Myrrhiactis, a race of small alpine Composites, pre-eminent in 
worthlessness. 
Myrtus offers us nothing legitimate for the garden (unless we 
include neat-leaved little M. tarentina), except the great beauty of 
M. nummularia from New Zealand, which is perfectly hardy, and 
sovers any open peaty level with prostrate flat masses of neat-leaved 
shining shoots, and emitting in due course little white fluffs of flower, 
to be followed by scarlet berries, from which, no doubt, the plant 
could be raised anew, were not all Myrtles so generous about striking 
from cuttings. 
END OF VOL. I. 
PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN 
T, NELSON AND SONS, LTD. 
