124 THE WILD GARDEN. 
of these plants sends up a little fountain of small golden flowers. For 
bare, stony, or rocky banks, poor sandy ground, and ruins, they are 
admirable, Alyssum Wiersbecki and A. saxatile are strong enough 
to take care of themselves on the margins of shrubberies, etc., where 
the vegetation is not very coarse, but they are more valuable for rocky 
or stony places, or old ruins, and thrive freely on cottage garden walls 
in some districts; some of the less grown species would be welcome 
in such places. There are many species, natives of Germany, Russia, 
France, Italy, Corsica, Sicily, Hungary, and Dalmatia ; Asia, principally 
Siberia, the Altai Mountains, Georgia, Persia,.and the entire basin of 
the Caspian, is rich in them. 
Windflower, Anemone—A numerous race of dwarf herbs that 
The Alpine Windflower (Anemone alpina). 
contribute largely to the most beautiful effects of the mountain, wood, 
and pasture vegetation of all northern and temperate climes. The 
flowers vary from intense scarlet to the softest blue ; most of the exotic 
kinds would thrive as well in our woodlands and meadows as they do 
in their own. There is hardly a position they may not adorn—warm, 
sunny, bare banks, on which the Grecian A. blanda might open its 
large blue flowers in winter; the tangled copse, where the Japan 
Windflower and its varieties might make a bold show in autumn ; 
and the shady wood, where the Apennine Windflower would contrast 
charmingly with the Wood Anemone so abundantly scattered in our 
