PART II.] 



ALPINE FLOWERS FOR GARDENS 



205 



and Canada, in copses and woods, also 

 ascending high on the mountains of the 

 southern country. Syn., 0. pabescens. 



Cypripedium arietinum is a beautiful 

 little Orchid, difficult to gro\v, and liking 

 much moisture. The upper sepal and 

 petals are greenish-white, lined with red- 

 brown, the lip white in the throat, suffused 

 with rose in front and streaked with red. 

 Canada and the colder parts of the United 

 States in cool damp woods. 



CYSTOPTERIS (Bladder Fern) 

 The cultivated kinds of this native 

 group are small elegant Ferns of 

 delicate fragile texture, growing on 

 rocks and walls, chiefly in moun- 

 tainous districts. The best known 

 are : C. fragilis, which has finely-cut 

 fronds about 6 inches high. It is of 

 easy culture, succeeding in an ordinary 

 border, though seen to best advantage 

 on shady parts of the rock-garden 

 in a well-drained soil. There are 

 two or three varieties, DicTdeana 

 being the best. C. alpina is much 

 smaller, and, when once established, 

 not difficult to cultivate or increase, 

 but more affected by excessive 

 moisture than C. fragilis. A shel- 

 tered situation in a well-drained part 

 of the rock-garden suits it. C. mon- 

 tana is another elegant plant requiring 

 the same treatment as C. fragilis. 



CYTISUS (Broom}. These graceful 

 and brilliant shrubs, though mostly 

 too large for our purpose in the select 

 rock-garden, wherever we deal with 

 the natural rocks are valuable shrubs, 

 being so free and easily raised by 

 merely shaking the seed on the 

 ground. Even the most arid railway- 

 bank may be adorned by shaking a few 

 seeds over them ; and of course the 

 natural rock would be the very place 

 for them. The purple Broom is natur- 

 ally a trailing shrub with purplish 

 flowers, but is generally seen grafted 



mop fashion on Laburnum stems. 

 It .is really an alpine shrub, and its 

 place is among rocks and boulders, 

 where its wiry branches can fall over 

 and make dense cushion-like tufts. 

 C. Ardoini is a pretty alpine shrub 

 a few inches high, and suitable for 

 the rock-garden; its tufted growth 

 is covered in summer with yellow 

 -flowers. 



Cytisus albus is the graceful white 

 Portuguese Broom, an aid where our rocks 

 are bold. The Montpellier Broom is only 

 hardy in mild sea-shore districts, and 

 various other kinds are not hardy in our 

 country. G. scoparius, the common Broom 

 of Britain, is one of the most beautiful 

 shrubs, and well worth naturalising where 

 it is not common wild. C. andreanus is a 

 fine broom variety of it. The Spanish 

 Broom is a very fine plant like the above, 

 but it is put under the name of Spartium 

 Junceum. Some of these are so free 

 and vigorous that one can sow the seed 

 out of hand on poor and stony places and 

 in a very short time see the plants arise 

 (even without covering the seed) on such 

 surfaces as railway banks, sandy slopes, 

 and thin copsey places, rough hedge 

 banks and road -sides. The common 

 Broom comes freely in this way, and also 

 the Spanish Broom, though not a native 

 plant, is superb on railway -banks, coming 

 later than our own Broom. I have raised 

 many in this way by merely shaking the 

 seed in passing, and in the spring of this 

 year (1902) sowed over half a hundred- 

 weight of seed of the common Broom in 

 young woods, on rail-banks, and the most 

 likely places for it in or near my own 

 place. The seed is saved in quantity by 

 all the great seed houses, so there should 

 be no difficulty in obtaining it. I recom- 

 mend the pastime to gentlemen who have 

 had enough of more fashionable forms of 

 amusement. It has even claims from the 

 musical side, as one may hear the nightin- 

 gale when sowing of an evening in May. 



DALIBARDA REPENS (Violet- 

 leaved Dalibarda). A low tufted plant, 

 about 2 inches in height, with white 



