264 ALPINE FLOWERS. Part II. 



soil in which it grows be carpeted with the Lawn Pearlwort or 

 some other very dwarf plant, and failing these, with an inch 

 or so of cocoa-fibre and sand, to keep the soil somewhat moist 

 and compact about the plants. Flowers in early summer. I am 

 not aware that it has yet been increased in gardens. 



ORCHIS MA.CTJLti.'^K.— Spotted O. 



This is the handsomest British Orchis. Usually prettily tinted 

 in the poorest and driest soils, but a very different object in a 

 rich Buckinghamshire meadow (where I have seen it sometimes 

 so thick that the spikes were as plentiful as those of the grass 

 flowers) to what it appears on a starved Surrey heath. If well 

 grown in moist and rather stiff garden loam, it will surprise and . 

 please even those who know it well in a wild state. Obtain it 

 at any season, and plant twelve or twenty tubers in a patch, 

 taking them up as tenderly as possible, and plant them carCr. 

 fully in a half-shady and sheltered position in moist deep soil. 

 When the plants form dense patches two or three years after- 

 wards, they will prove more beautiful than many orchids from 

 warmer climes. Flowers in summer, and may be associated 

 with the Cypf ipediums, or planted in tufts in borders, or on the 

 margins of shrubberies. 



Orchis foliosa, latifolid, and laxiflora, are also worthy of a 

 place ; the two last thrive best in moist boggy soil, and should 

 be placed in the artificial bog. 



OROBUS OYANEtrS.— .S/z<^ Bitter Vetch. 



A DWARF vetch-like plant, with large, handsome, bluish flowers 

 among masses of light green leaves, with two or three pairs of 

 leaflets, flowering in spring, the plant growing little more than 

 six inches high. I have only observed this plant growing on 

 very cold stiff ground scarcely acceptable to coarse weeds, and 

 there it was quite hardy and flowered regularly, so that it is 

 probable it would do much better on light good soils. Propa- 

 gated by seeds or division ; comes from the Caucasian moun- 

 tains, and is best suited for warm, sheltered, sunny spots on 

 rockwork. It is sometimes met with under the name of Platy- 

 stylis cyaneus, under which name it was figured by Sweet. 



