trailing shoots will be found to exhibit a perfectly extraordinary Lime Lovers 
gift for perishing. Erica mediterranea and Erica Mackaii are (calcicole) 
even more obstinate, but this no botanist can regret, seeing how 
rigidly limited is the habitat of both. The Saxifrages, on the 
other hand, are most of them amiability personified. Not 
alone the two London Prides, but S. Sternbergii, S. hypnoides, 
and others, moving with the greatest ease. With the Orchises 
we come again to difficulties. Mabenaria intacta, perhaps the 
greatest of all these western rarities, being, like its cousin, 
Opbrys apifera, the Bee Orchis, extremely difficult to re-establish 
permanently. Even more hopeless, for most people, is the great 
Pinguicula. I have myself several times persuaded it to exist for 
a while in a tiny make-believe bog, but alas, it was only for a 
time! The end, if slow, was sure. 
Setting aside the Ferns for a moment, there is another, and 
an especially characteristic group of west-country plants, which 
are highly desirable as garden inmates, but are anything but 
easy to induce to stay there. The group, I mean, of pecu- 
liarly lime-loving plants (ca/cicole is, I believe, the orthodox 
term), of which a large number, almost unknown in a 
wild state elsewhere, are to be found here. Foremost 
amongst these stands the never sufficiently to be praised spring 
Gentian (Gentiana verna). Although abounding in several 
places in Connaught in a wild condition, and though again 
and again transplanted with every care and _ precaution, 
I fail to recall a single instance, either of my own or other 
people’s efforts, which can be said to have been crowned with 
genuine and final success. Dryas octopetala, on the other 
hand—another very desirable plant belonging to the same 
group—will live and flourish indefinitely if properly attended 
II 
