3 14 THE ALPINE FLORA 



P. nitida, with silver leaves and pink flowers, from the 

 Southern Alps. 



Cinquefoils are of easy culture in any open rockery ; 

 nivea and frigida, however, are more troublesome, and 

 caulescens prefers a wall or sunny crevice in the rockery. 

 Two magnificent himalayan species are in cultivation : 

 P. alrosanguinea with blood-red flowers, which in the 

 garden of Rambertia, at 2000 m., has proved a veritable 

 marvel, and nepalensis with flowers of delicate rose veined 

 with bright carmine. 



Rosa 



Wild roses are common in the Alps (Gremli enumerates 

 some dozens) so common that readers will be thankful to 

 be spared an exhaustive enumeration. The best loved is : 



7^. alpina (PI. XXXVI ) or the Thornless fyse, the place 

 of thorns being taken by numerous, tiny, far scattered and 

 almost invisible spikelets. It does well and is all too little 

 known in gardens, where it is welcome for its earliness 

 and interesting as a reputed parent of the Boursaults. The 

 flowers, however, lack the full brilliance of the mountains. 



It grows into low bushes, barely rising more than three 

 or four feet from the ground, garlanded with beautiful 

 flowers of purest carmine and deliciously fragrant. The 

 fruits (cynorrhodons) are used to make an astringent con- 

 serve, which is employed in cases of chronic diarrhoea; 

 the seeds, washed and dried before use, provide an ex- 

 cellent tea which is drunk by purist vegetarians, who 

 refuse any other. The tea requires an hour's stewing 

 and is both pleasantly flavoured and delicately scented. 



In the south-western calcareous Alps and in the Jura a 

 dwarf rose is to be met, whose branching stems (20-40 

 in.) are furnished with fine thorns of varying length; the 

 7-11 -foliate leaves are small and rounded, bearing many 



