PART II.] 



ALPINE FLOWERS FOR GARDENS 



183 



ennials are too coarse for the rock- 

 garden, and neither these nor the 

 medium-sized kinds require its aid, 

 growing, as they do, freely in any 

 soil ; but the dwarf mountain kinds 

 are essential to its beauty all the 

 more so, as they rarely demand any 

 special position, but may be grown 

 in chinks or between steps on any 

 aspect. Where there is no good 

 rock-garden they may be grown well 

 and with good effect behind arid 

 about stone or flint edgings. Among 

 these plants garden-hybrids are not 

 now uncommon, but it is better on 

 the rock-garden to keep to the wild 

 forms. Some hybrids, however, like 

 G. F. Wilson, are pretty. Ordinary 

 garden-soils suit well even the moun- 

 tain kinds, with a little change in 

 the case of the kinds inhabiting high 

 moraines, and a rather peaty soil 

 for the graceful C. pulla. In con- 

 genial soils they bear seed freely, and 

 often sow themselves. In a numerous 

 group like this, where beauty of effect 

 is sought, we arrive at it more surely 

 by growing well and placing rightly 

 the more beautiful kinds, than by 

 collecting every kind we can. 



The following Hairbells are mostly 

 of dwarf stature, natives of rocky or 

 mountain ground, excluding the more 

 vigorous herbaceous kinds as unfit for 

 the rock-garden and delicate or doubt- 

 ful species. They will fairly represent 

 in the rock-garden and on walls the 

 beauty of a fine family of northern and 

 high mountain plants many of which 

 are not in cultivation : 



Campanula Allioni (A llioni's Hairbell). 

 A dwarf kind, the flowers very large for a 

 plant growing seldom more than 3 inches 

 or 4 inches in height, purplish-blue (rarely 

 white), almost erect on a slender stalk. 

 It is an excellent rock-plant, and though 

 requiring plenty of moisture, it should 

 have a well-drained position, and is there- 



fore best grown in a narrow crevice filled 

 with sandy loam with small stones and 

 grit. Flowering summer. Piedmont. 

 Syn., C. alpestris. 



Campanula alpina (Alpine Hairbell). 

 This is covered with stiff down, which gives 

 it a grey hue, with longish leaves and erect, 

 not spreading, habit, like the Garganica 

 group, and with flowers of a fine dark 

 blue, scattered in a pyramidal manner 

 along the stems. It is a native of the 

 Carpathians, hardier than the dwarf 

 Italian Campanulas, and valuable for the 

 margins of borders as well as for the rock- 

 garden. In cultivation it grows from 5 

 inches to 10 inches high, and may be 

 readily increased by division or seeds. 



C. barbata (Bearded Hairbell). One, of 

 the blue Hairbells that abound in the 

 meadows of Alpine France, Switzerland, 

 and N. Italy. It is readily known by 

 the long beard at the mouth of its pretty 

 pale sky-blue flowers, nearly l inches 

 long, nodding from the stems, which 

 usually bear two to five flowers, and 

 rise from rough, shaggy leaves. In high 

 ground in its native country, it grows no 

 more than from 4 inches" to 10 inches 

 high, but nearly twice as high in the 

 valleys in Piedmont. There is a white- 

 flowered form, both thriving freely in 

 loam. 



C. csespitosa (Tufted Hairbell). One 

 of the most beautiful plants in the alpine 

 flora, abundant over the high ranges in 

 the central parts of Europe, and thriving 

 in all parts of the British Isles. It grows 

 only a few inches high, and looks the 

 same fresh, purely-tinted, ever-spreading 

 and bravely-flowering little plant in a 

 British garden as it is when seen 

 mantling round the stones and crevices 

 of rocks on the mountains. There is a 

 white variety as pretty as the blue, 

 and both are admirable for the rock- 

 garden or mixed, border. It is easily 

 increased by division and also by seed, 

 but as a few tufts may be divided into 

 small pieces, and quickly form a stock 

 large enough for any garden, it is scarcely 

 worth while raising it from seed. As it 

 occurs so freely by the roadsides along 

 the roadways into Italy, it was one of 

 the first alpine plants to be grown in 



