THE WHITE ROCKERY 85 



My special longing was this pilocereus, the old-man 

 cactus, with his head of venerable silver hair ; but he 

 is never cheap anywhere not even in Italy and I 

 had to go content with lesser celebrities. Opuntia 

 tunicata is, upon the whole, my favourite of all these 

 prickly people. Its ferocious ivory-white thorns give 

 it a very handsome appearance, and in the southern 

 gardens it attains to a remarkable size. Its flower I 

 know not. To return to the afflicted sedums my 

 favourites, if I have any, are pulchellum an old but 

 rare beauty, with pink flowers and lovely foliage 

 Kamtschaticum, Middendorff's, and Stahlii. The last 

 has yellow flowers, and I doubt its hardiness, but 

 each leaf will make a new plant. The huge sedum 

 spectabile is brown with honey-bees in late autumn. 



Some large clumps of mossy saxifrages next appear, 

 and in the ledges beneath them hang veronicas and 

 peep cyclamens, while above are campanula garganica 

 and C. Waldsteiniana. Next occurs a plant I think not 

 common in England the shrubby anthyllis Barba- 

 Jovis, 1 that grows on sun-scorched cliff-faces of the 

 Mediterranean in Provence. Thence I brought it, 

 and so far the plant has prospered. It has pale lemon 

 flowers and a neat habit of silver leaves. Here also 

 is astragalus monspessulanus a thing far finer and of 

 a pleasanter form than the great straggly astragalus 

 alopecuriodes, which is praised in high places, but 

 which I grew with dismay, and would banish back to 

 Siberia whence it came. Near at hand grows astra- 

 galus hypoglottis alba, and then passing that rather 



1 A, Barba-Jovis. There is a fine specimen on a wall at Kew. 



