80 ALPINE PLANTS 
claim to attention. We do not usually rely upon the 
rockery for material for cut flower decorations, but this 
plant, which is certainly well adapted to rock culture or 
for planting in a shady portion of the alpine bed, furnishes 
a liberal quantity of slender wiry stems clothed with 
extremely elegant leaves, and surmounted by airy tremulous 
panicles of minute blossoms of purest whiteness, which 
are equal in decorative value, even indeed if not superior, 
to the ever popular and indispensable Gypsophila. A. 
hexaphylla spreads by means of underground stems, and 
these afford an easy means of increasing stock by division. 
ASTER ALPINUS.—The mountain species of that wonder- 
ful and comprehensive family of perennials known as 
Michaelmas daisies is itself a summer flowering plant in our 
lowland gardens, but it is a charmingly pretty flower, 
and makes a fine patch of clear purple about six inches 
from the ground level. The starry flowers are large for 
a plant of such dwarf stature. A necessary attention 
with A. alpinus is to mulch with sandy soil at the beginning 
of winter, working the compost closely in between the 
growths. Roots will then form from the base of the 
stems, and by lifting and dividing these every alternate 
spring the stamina and vigour of the plants and size and 
substance of the flowers will be maintained. 
AUBRIETIA.—Ever popular and extremely useful, the 
Aubrietias should never be omitted either from the 
rockery, the alpine bed, or else as edgings for herbaceous 
borders. With tufts of foliage at the ends of thin wiry 
stems, Aubrietias in a young state make neat little cushions 
of growth, which in spring and early summer are closely 
