PART II.] 



ALPINE FLOWERS FOR GARDENS 



flowers, surrounded by a whorl of 

 shining-green divided leaves, with a 

 short, blackish, underground stem re- 

 sembling a tuber ; the flowers, an inch 

 or more across, being thrown up on 

 stems from 3 to 8 inches high. It is 

 naturalised in woods and copses in 

 various parts of the country, but has 

 probably escaped from cultivation, and 

 is not considered a native, its true 

 home being shady and humid places 

 on southern continental mountains. 

 It is pretty well known, being fre- 

 quently sold by our bulb merchants, 

 and is too common a plant for the 

 choice rock-garden. 



Eranthis cilicica is another kind of like 

 use, but which may for a time deserve a 

 better place on the rock-garden than the 

 easily-grown winter Aconite, as free as a 

 weed in any open and chalky soils. 



ERICA (Heath). "Wiry and usually 

 rather dwarf hill and moor shrubs of 

 much native charm. Some of the 

 prettiest inhabit our own country, and 

 these break into varieties of distinct 

 value for the garden. If there were 

 no other plants than these, we 

 could make pretty rock or moor 

 gardens of them, even in hot and 

 poor soils, and these and a few other 

 plants, such as Brooms, Sun Roses 

 and Rock Roses, might adorn many 

 a hot slope of poor ground, the smaller 

 kinds the rock-garden, the larger com- 

 ing into the shrubby parts near. Even 

 some of the tender ones of Southern 

 Europe are very happy in mild dis- 

 tricts in our climate. Several of the 

 taller and less hardy Heaths are here 

 omitted the best kinds for the rock- 

 garden given. 



Erica Australis (Southern Heath). A 

 pretty bush Heath of the sandy hills and 

 wastes of Spain and Portugal, 2 feet to 

 3 feet high, flowering in spring in Britain. 

 The flowers are rosy purple and fragrant. 



Erica carnea (Alpine Forest Heath}. A 

 jewel among mountain Heaths, and hardy 

 as the Rock Lichen. On many ranges of 

 Central Europe at rest in the snow in 

 winter, in our mild winters, it flowers early, 

 and in all districts is in bloom- in the 

 dawn of spring deep rosy flowers, the 

 leaves and all good in colour. Syn., E. 

 herbacea. 



E. cinerea (Scotch Heath). A dwarf 

 Heath, common in many parts of Britain, 

 very easily grown, and with pretty 

 varieties of white and various colours. 

 Its flowers of reddish purple begin to ex- 

 pand early in June. Among its varieties 

 are alba, bicolor, coccinea, pallida, purpurea, 

 and rosea. 



E. ciliaris (Dorset Heath). A lovely 

 dwarf Heath, and as pretty as any Heath 

 of Europe. A native of Western France 

 and Spain in heaths and sandy woods, it 

 also comes into Southern England. The 

 flowers are of a purple-crimson, and fade 

 away into a pretty brown, thriving also in 

 loamy as well as in peaty soils, and flower- 

 ing from June to October. 



E. hybrida (Hybrid Heath). A cross 

 between E. carnea and E. mediterranea. 

 It is a charming bush, and flowers freely 

 in winter and far into the spring, thriving 

 in loamy soil almost as well as in peat. 



E. hibernica (Irish Heath). Mr Bos- 

 well Syme, whose knowledge of British 

 plants was most profound, considered this 

 Irish plant distinct from the Mediter- 

 ranean Heath, " the flowering not taking 

 place in the Irish plant till three or four 

 months after the Mediterranean Heath ; " 

 a fine shrub in Mayo and Galway, growing 

 from 2 to 5 feet high. 



E. lusitanica (Portuguese Heath). This 

 is for Britain the most precious of the 

 taller Heaths, 2 to 4 feet high, and, hardier 

 than the Tree Heath, it may be grown 

 over a larger area. Even in a cool district 

 I have had it in a loamy soil ten years, 

 and almost every year it bears lovely 

 wreaths of flowers in mid-winter, white 

 flowers with a little touch of pink, in fine 

 long Foxbrush-like shoots. In about one 

 year in five, it is cut down by frost, but 

 usually recovers, and is a shrub of rare 

 beauty for sea coast and mild districts. 

 Syn., E. codonodes. 



