124 ALPINE FLOWERS. Part II. 



artist who painted the " Rising Sun." It is a first-rate border 

 plant, growing about a foot high, but it does very poorly in 

 cold stiff soil, flourishing to great perfection where the air is 

 somewhat moist and the soil light and good. Nothing can 

 be finer where it grows healthfully ; where it does not, it is not 

 worth cultivating in the border, but on rockwork it Tvill be easy to 

 give it deep and light soil. It is a native of warm, spots on the 

 higher European. Alps, flowering soon after the snow melts, 

 and in our gardens in early summer. There is a variety called 

 A. sibirica, which is said to have larger flowers, but is probably 

 not in cultivation. 



The Pyrenean Adonis {Jl . pyrenaicd) is very like this plant, ■ 

 but has usually fewer, smaller, and more obtuse petals scarcely 

 denticulated at the top, grows somewhat taUer, and has 

 radical leaves with long stalks, whereas those of A . vernalis are 

 abortive or almost reduced to mere scales. It is not sufficiently 

 removed from A. vernalis to merit culture except in large 

 collections. 



^THIONEMA CO-RTDTEOlAXSyi.— Lebanon M. 



A LITTLE glaucous half-shrubby jjant, with an abundance of 

 thin, wiry stems, bearing narrow grey leaves and a multitude of 

 pretty rosy flowers, arranged at first in a compact head, which 

 becomes elongated as the flowering season advances. This is 

 one of the sweetest alpine plants in existence, and so hardy and 

 free that it may be generally grown. I first met with it in M. 

 Vilmorin's garden, near Paris, growing in quantity in a long bed 

 of the sandy soil of the neighbourhood, the dense spray of leaves 

 and wiry stems, about six inches high, thickly dotted with the 

 delicate rose-coloured flowers. It had flourished in the same posi- 

 tion for several years. Plants raised from seeds I brought from 

 Paris have done quite as well in. the neighbourhood of London. 

 It succeeds perfectly wdl on the front margin of the mixed 

 border ; and though rockwork is not required for success with it, 

 its presence will certainly be a gain to every rockwork where 

 the highest beauty of alpine plants is sought. In consequence 

 of the prostrate spreading habit of the stems, a pleasing result 

 will be produced by plantiflg it in one or two positions where the 

 roots may descend into deep earth, and the stems fall over the 

 face of rocks at about, or somewhat above, the level of the eye. 



