White Varieties of Flowers 155 



The roots of many of these dwarf mountain plants would 

 astonish the traveller, did he take the time and trouble to 

 examine them, and where the formation of the rock admits 

 of its being split away so as to lay them bare. For every 

 half-inch the plant raises its leaves above the surface, the 

 roots may go down a foot, or even a yard, and present a 

 mass of rootlets more abundant than that of many a good 

 sized garden shrub. A study of them is a good object 

 lesson for the rock-gardener, and not for the rock-gardener 

 only. Those who have so often failed in their endeavours 

 to grow ferns, or other plants, perhaps carelessly pulled 

 from wall, or rock, during a holiday excursion, may see 

 here the prime cause of their failure ; and if they pay 

 attention to it, so as to profit by the lesson, they will 

 probably henceforth cease to speak of such and such a 

 plant as " Oh, that's too delicate to grow in the rockery ; 

 I have tried it ever so many times, but it has always 

 died " : the fact being that very often, when the plant is 

 carried off from its mountain home, all its feeding roots are 

 left behind. 



White, and pale coloured, varieties of flowering plants 

 are frequent about Llanuchwllyn, and may perhaps owe 

 their prevalence, in part at least, to the same causes which 

 induce a viviparous growth. On most of the moors White 

 Heather is far from rare ; and on some, such as that round 

 the foot of Ffridd Helyg-y-Moch, it may almost be called 

 abundant. This applies chiefly to Ling (Calluna vulgaris\ 

 which here, as elsewhere, is " the heather " ; but in very wet 

 places it is largely supplanted by the Heaths (Erica tetralix y 

 and E. cinerea), and white varieties of each of these are of 

 nearly as frequent occurrence. Indeed, I have seen the 

 former in large clumps, four or five yards square ; and as 

 the white blooms are almost always large and fine, they 

 form conspicuous and pleasing patches on the otherwise 

 sombre coloured bogs. Both, also, show many rose-tinted, 

 intermediate forms, eminently beautiful flowers ; but " white 

 heather" is seldom associated in the popular imagination 

 here with that " good luck " which flings a halo round it in 

 so many other districts ; while the less conspicuous varieties 



