2i6 ALPINE FLOWERS. Part II. 



dried, make an excellent tea, it is also known by the name of 

 the " mountain tea." Loudon says it is difficult to keep alive, 

 except in a peat soil kept moist ; but I have never seen it prettier 

 or so full of berries as on clayey loam. The plant v\ras thoroughly 

 exposed, and the only advantage it had corresponding to those 

 usually mentioned as necessary was that the soil was moist. It 

 does well in moist peat, and forms capital edgings to beds in 

 some places where the natural soil is of that quality, or a very 

 light loam. Easily increased by division or by seeds, and 

 suitable for the rockwork, the front margins of borders, and 

 occasionally as an edging to beds of choice and dwarf American 

 plants. 



G-ENISTA SAGITTALIS.— fTz^^^^a 



A VERY handsome and singular plant, known at once and 

 at all times by its branchlets being winged (by the stem ex- 

 panding into two or three green membranes), more like those 

 of a miniature Epiphyllum than a Genista, and producing an 

 abundance of rich yellow flowers in summer ; the shoots are 

 usually prostrate, and the plant is rarely more than six inches 

 high. It is met with growing abundantly in the grass in the 

 mountain pastures of many parts of Europe. In cultivation it is 

 a valuable plant, hardy and vigorous in the wettest and coldest 

 soil, forming neat profusely-flowering tufts when fully exposed, 

 and excellent for either rockwork or borders. Easily raised 

 from seed. 



GENISTA TINCTORIA.— Z'j^r'j- G. 



A NEAT native shrub, with numerous slender branches, usually 

 forming compact tufts from a foot to a foot and a half high, and 

 becoming quite a mass of pretty yellow flowers in early summer, 

 over the usually smooth and shining stalkless leaves. The 

 flowers are in dense racemes, each bloom springing from the 

 axil of a small leaf or bract. There is, however, no fear of con- 

 founding the plant with any other. It is grown in many of 

 our nurseries, and merits a place among rock-shrubs on the 

 rougher parts of rockwork, or on the margin of shrubberies. 

 There is a double variety rather common in cultivation. Not 

 unfrequent in many parts of England, but rare in Scotland and 

 Ireland. 



