54 FAMILIAR GAKDEN FLOWERS. 



The Alpine wallllowei' [E. orltroleiicinii) forms a neat 

 leafy bush, nine to twelve inches high, adorned in spring 

 with a fine head of suljihur or pale lemon-coloured flowers. 

 Like the garden wallflower, it is well adapted for planting 

 on walls and ruins, hut unlike the more fragrant plant, 

 it is ncit adapted for the common horder, hy reason of 

 its snsceptiliility to winter damj). It is as hardy as any 

 plant of its class, and therefore frost will hut rarely harm 

 it, provided it is on a dry soil, and has not become over- 

 luxuriant through good living. It is a point of great 

 importance for the amateur grower of Alpines to bear in 

 mind that the promotion of a free succulent growth is 

 altogether imdcsirable in the case of all such plants ; many 

 of them require an almndance oE moisture in their growing 

 season, but a rich soil and a positioir removed from the 

 free atmosphere and the full play of the daylight are, 

 generally speaking, directly injurious, both as rendering 

 the plants less hardy than is their nature, and also less 

 disposed to flower freely. We often have to recommend 

 a deep nourishing loam or peat for Alpine plants, but it 

 may be observed that we never recommend the use of 

 stimulating manures or soils that are naturally damp and 

 lieavv. The mountain flora comprises plants that vary 

 immensely in affinities and requirements; some are at 

 home on the dry, starving rocky bluff, where there is 

 scarcely a particle of such stuff as we call " mould ; " others 

 haunt the crowded bog, where the plants f(_irm a dense wet 

 mat, and subsist on the black earth that results from the 

 ever-accumulating decay of those that have lived their 

 season or have been stitled by the strong usurpers. But 

 a large i)roportion of the most beautiful Alpine plants 

 have their roots in deep beds of decayed stone, containing 



