152 ALPINE FLOWERS. Part II. 



ARENAEIA TETEAQUETRA. — Square-stemmed A, 



This is not in cultivation in Britain ; but I saw strong tufts of 

 it in M. Boissier's garden, in Switzerland, in 1868, and, as there is 

 abundance of it in various parts of France, there can be no diffi- 

 culty in procuring it. It forms very compact and singular- 

 looking tufts in consequence of the leaves, each with a white 

 cartilage along the margin, being disposed in four rows. The 

 sepals are also margined — and these characters distinguish it at 

 a glance from the others. I have not seen it in flower, but it is 

 worth a place where the other small Sandworts are grown, if 

 only for the peculiarity of its habit, and it is best fitted for the 

 rockwork, on which it thrives without any particular attention. 



ARENAEIA VERNA.— Vernal Sandwort. 



Grows in dwarf grassy prostrate tufts, covered in April and 

 May with multitudes of starry white flowers with green centres. 

 It is useful for parts of rockwork where a very dwarf kind of 

 vegetation is desired, but scarcely worth growing as a specimen 

 alpine. In consequence of the prostrate habit of both shoots 

 and flowers, the plant is seen to much greater advantage when 

 placed on some little bank above the eye. The prettiest I have 

 ever seen growing was on a little ledge about ten feet high, and 

 receding about as much backwards, while tufts of the same plant 

 at my feet looked coriaparatively insignificant. It is widely dis- 

 tributed over Europe, Asia, and America, is a native of the 

 more northerly and elevated parts of Great Britain and Ireland, 

 and is readily increased by seed or division. 



Of other Arenarias in cultivation, the best and most interest- 

 ing are A. ciliata, a rare British plant; A. triflora, a neat 

 species in cultivation in some of our botanic gardens and 

 curious collections ; A. laricifolia, sndA. graminifolia. These, 

 however, are scarcely worth growing except in botanical col- 

 lections. 



ARMEEIA CEPHALOTES.— Gr^iz/ Thrift. 



This, compared to our British Thrift, is somewhat as the full- 

 blown life-guardsman to his humble congener in the miljtie. 

 From a dense mass of crowded leaves, four inches to six 

 inches long, spring numerous stems fifteen inches to twenty 



