158 _ ALPINE FLOWERS. Part II. 



appropriate. Growing in common soil, in the open border, or 

 on any exposed spot, it thrives as luxuriantly as on the best- 

 made rockwork, forming round spreading tufts ; and on fine 

 days in spring the blue flowers come out on these in such crowds 

 as to completely hide the leaves, making, in fact, hillocks of 

 colour. For covering bare ground beneath roses and shrubs, 

 it might also be tastefully employed. It is quite easy to 

 naturahse it in bare rocky places. London smut falls upon 

 it without affecting its health in the least. It is easily pro- 

 pagated by seeds, cuttings, or division — the last mode the most 

 facile. There are several so-called species very nearly allied to 

 this plant, but I group them all under this name, believing them 

 to be nothing more than marked varieties of the same species. 

 Grown together, their affinity is clearly seen, and in these days 

 of doubts about species few things may be more safely united 

 under one specific name than the Aubrietias at present in culti- 

 vation. 



Among the several varieties, A. deltoidea grandiflora and 

 A. Campbelli axe the most ornamental : A. graca is simply 

 a variety. Aubrietias vary a good deal from seed, but their 

 little differences make them all the more valuable as garden 

 plants, and they all agree in carpeting the earth with dense 

 cushions of compact rosettes of leaves, profusely clothed with 

 beautiful purplish-blue flowers in spring, and, in the case of 

 young plants in moist and rich soils, almost throughout the 

 year. There are one or two pretty variegated varieties. 



BEGONIA VEITCHII.— F^zM'j B. 



Dr. Hooker states this, to be, " of all the species of Begonia 

 known, the finest." This is surely a sufficient guarantee of its 

 great beauty ; but I doubt if any description can give an idea 

 of what it presents to one who sees it for the first time in the 

 open air on rockwork or border in the fuU gloss of its fine dark- 

 green foliage, and brilliancy of its large vivid flowers. That any 

 species of Begonia should flourish in the open air as this does, is 

 interesting enough ; but that the most magnificent of the genus 

 that we know should do so, is surely welcome news tq lovers of 

 beautiful hardy plants. The foliage is of a rich, glossy green, and 

 the flowers, which are considerably larger than a five-shiUing piece, 

 are of such a glorious colour, a " vivid vermilion cinnabar red," 

 that the plant cannot be dispensed with in any collection of hardy 



