MO SUB-ALPINE PLANTS 



terminal, usually 2-flowered ; flowers white, like those of the last 

 species. Sepals ovate-lanceolate, obtuse, 3-nerved. 



Steep rocks in the lower Alps, descending to the valleys. May. 



Distribution. — Eastern Alps. 



Paronychia Juss. 



These curious little silvery plants are mostly Mediterranean, but 

 there are two species which attain a considerable height in the 

 Pyrenees and the Alps of Savoy, Dauphiny, and Provence. 



Paronychia polygonifolia DC. 



Stems spreading from a woody rootstock and forming a dense 

 cushion of small, opposite, lanceolate, glabrous leaves, oval- 

 acuminate stipules and lanceolate, acuminate, silvery bracts. 

 Flowers very small, greenish. 



Sandy and rocky places in siliceous mountains up to 7000 feet. 

 June to September. 



Distribution. — Western and Southern Alps ; Pyrenees, Corsica, 

 Asia Minor. 



Paronychia capitata Lamk. 



A small plant with woody, twisted rootstock, and ascending 

 stems, which are densely leafy, pubescent. Leaves opposite, oval or 

 lanceolate, obtuse, ciliate. Stipules lanceolate-acute, often longer 

 than the leaves. Flowers in dense heads, silvery white, at the top 

 of the branches. Bracts broad, obtuse or mucronate, scarious and 

 silvery. Sepals equal, linear-obtuse, not membranous at the edges. 

 Stamens 5. 



Sandy, rocky places on hills and mountains ; local. May to July. 



Distribution. — Pyrenees, Western and Southern Alps (not in 

 Switzerland). Southern Europe, Algeria. 



Paronychia serpyllifolia DC. 



Sometimes considered a variety of P. capitata Lamk., from which 

 it differs by its rounded, obovate leaves and more prostrate habit. 

 Its dense heads of silvery white bracts, which are large and broadly 

 obovate, are very beautiful. 



It flowers in June, and we have it from 5500 feet on Monte 

 Toraggio in the Ligurian Alps, on which mountains it is not rare. 

 It is a plant to introduce in hot, sandy places on the rockery. 



SCLERANTHUS L. 



Scleranthus perennis L. Perennial Knawel. 



This much resembles S. annuus so well known in sandy places 

 in England and in Switzerland, etc., but the root is larger and stems 

 more tufted. The flowering-stems are more rigid, and the flowers 



