304 ALPINE FLOWERS. Part II. 



dwarf, compact-growing plants, closely allied, in fact so much so 

 that they may be considered as mere varieties of the typical 

 species, D. rupestris. The flowers in each case are small, but 

 are produced abundantly. Considering the neat habit of the 

 plants, every collection should possess at least one of them. 



Draba nivalis, a native of the Swiss Alps, is the most diminu- 

 tive of the genus. The leaves are of a whitish green, owing to 

 the presence of minute stellate hairs. The plant, when in flower, 

 is not over two inches high, of nice compact habit, but rather a 

 shy grower, and consequently is rarely met with in cultivation. 



DRABA IBJ.DENTATA.—Tkree-tooi/iea Whitlow-G. 



Though classed amongst the yellow Drabas, this is quite a 

 distinct plant from the preceding species — in fact, in general 

 contour it is unallied to any other species that we know ; it is 

 a native of the mountains of Southern Russia, and forms a 

 dark-green, branching plant about four inches high, with a very- 

 delicate root stock ; the leaves being tolerably broad, and, as 

 the • name indicates, tridentate in character. The flowers are 

 produced abundantly, and are of a most intense golden yellow. 

 It seeds pretty freely, and ought to be planted on a rockwork, so 

 that the seeds may vegetate at once round the parent plant, 

 which, by the w:ay, must be looked upon as little better than 

 a biennial. 



Amongst the spring-flowering alpines, the genus Draba must 

 always take an important position. In addition to the brilhant 

 golden colour of the flowers of one section of the genus, the 

 plants are characterised by a dwarf compact habit, and by much 

 neatness in the arrangement of the bristly ciliated hairs, which 

 not unfrequently become bifurcate ; thus the attractive appear- 

 ance in the matter of colour is enhanced on a closer inspection 

 by the beauty of form and detail. In another section, we find 

 white to be the predominant colour, and though in many cases 

 the flowers are small, still, in the mass, fiUing up a nook or 

 crevice in a rockwork, and contrasted with the dark-green leaves, 

 they become very effective. They should be placed in the sun- 

 niest aspect on a rockery ; the more effectually the plants are 

 matured by the autumn sun the more freely will they return 

 these favours by an abundant bloom in early spring. The 



