Part II. POLYGONUM— POTENTILLA. 277 



plants ; in our gardens, however, on peaty soil, and in some fine 

 sandy loams, it spreads out into compact tufts covered with 

 creanvcoloured and yellow flowers, afterwards changing to a bay 

 colour in the lower division. A variety with purple wings and 

 calyx is not in cultivation, I believe. This plant was cultivated 

 200 years ago, at Oxford, but is now comparatively rare in our 

 gardens. It succeeds best in a peat soil, loves moisture, and 

 is admirably fitted for association with dwarf alpine shrubs on 

 rockwork or in peat beds. 



POLYGONUM VACCINIFOLrtrM.— ./?(?f/?r Knotweed. 



Although it comes of rather a poor and weedy race, this is 

 a neat and ornamental trailing plant, scrambhng freely over 

 stones, and producing many bright-rose spikes of flowers in 

 summer and autumn. It comes from elevations of from i r,ooo 

 to 13,000 feet on the Himalayas, which may perhaps have 

 had much to do in refining its character and making it so 

 unlike the Knotweeds that garnish the slime of our ditches and 

 canals. Easily increased by division or cuttings, and thrives in 

 common garden soil. Suited for banks, the fringes of shrub- 

 beries, rockwork, and the less important parts of the alpine 

 garden. 



POTENTILLA K5JBK.— White Cinquefoil. 



A PRETTY species, with the leaves in five stalkless leaflets, green 

 and smooth above, and quite silvery, with dense silky down, on 

 the lower sides. It is a very dwarf kind, neat and not rampant 

 in habit, with white strawberry-like flowers, nearly an inch 

 across, with a dark orange ring at the base. A native of the 

 Alps and Pyrenees, of the easiest culture in ordinary soil," and 

 a fitting ornament for borders or rockwork, flowering in early 

 summer, and easily increased by division. 



POTENTILLA ALPESTEIS.— ^i^z«« Cinquefoil. 



A RARE native plant, closely allied to the spring Potentilla 

 {P. verna), but with flower-stems more erect, forming tufts 

 nearly a foot high when well grown, the stalks of the leaves 

 being nearly six inches long, so that the whole plant is much 



