158 



ALPINE FLOWERS FOR GARDENS 



[PART II. 



runners. It should be planted in fine 

 sandy loam ; it may be grown on level 

 spots on borders. 



Androsace villosa himalayica is a 

 form of villosa, but much more vigorous, 

 and flowers later in the spring. Pure white, 

 with a very distinct red eye. In the early 

 part of the season the foliage is not covered 

 with the white silky hairs, but the foliage 

 becomes pure white later in the season. 

 It is also grown under the name of A. 

 Arachnoides. 



foliage can be obtained, 

 to keep the plant dry 



It 



in 



flower and 

 also helps 

 winter. 

 Androsace sarmentosa Chumleyi 



differs in the stalks being shorter and 

 stronger, and the flower much deeper in 

 colour. It is a better plant, and is a gem 

 for the rock-garden. This likes a sprink- 

 ling of limestone on the soil. If kept well 

 top-dressed, it will send out young runners 

 like a Strawberry plant, and root very 

 freely from the same. 



Androsace villosa. 



A, sarmentosa. This is a Himalayan 

 species, growing at an elevation of over 

 11,000 feet. The flowers, borne in trusses 

 of ten to twenty, at first sight resemble 

 those of a rosy white-eyed Verbena. Like 

 many other woolly-leaved alpines, this 

 is difficult to keep alive through our damp 

 winters. A piece of glass in a slanting 

 position about 6 inches above the plant 

 preserves it. Care should also be taken 

 to put sandstone, broken fine, immediately 

 under the rosettes of leaves and over the 

 surface of the soil, to keep every part of 

 the plant, except the roots, from contacc 

 with the soil. A dry calcareous loam is 

 best. Where limestone can be had to mix 

 with the soil, a much better display of 



A. vitaliana ( Yellow A.). Rarely grows 

 above an inch high, and produces, scarcely 

 above the leaves, flowers large for so small 

 a plant, and of a good yellow. On the 

 Alps it reminded me of a Liliputian 

 furze-bush, looked at through the wrong 

 end of a telescope. It is lovely for as- 

 sociation with the freer-growing Andro- 

 saces and dwarf Gentians, and it may even 

 be grown on a border in a not too dry 

 district where the soil is open and sandy. 

 A dry soil or a heavy one it does not 

 like, and when in suitable districts it is 

 tried as a border plant on the level ground, 

 it should be surrounded by stones, half 

 plunged in the ground, to prevent evapora- 

 tion, as well as to protect it. It is abund- 



