342 ALP.NE FLOWERS. Part II. 



of the old scarlet Lobelia, will prove a very popular and excel- 

 lent border and rock plant. A native of America, increased by 

 seeds and division, growing from one to two feet high, and 

 therefore most suited for association with the Aquilegias and 

 taller alpine plants, and not with the dwarf or delicate sorts. 



Having in cultivation such brilliant and distinct plants as 

 the preceding Catchflies, we must consider Silene Zawadskii, 

 dwarf and with white ilowers, the diminutive soft-tufted 5". 

 quadridentafa (for which S. alpestris is often mistaken), the 

 woody Silene arborescens, a dwarf, shrubby, evergreen species 

 with rose-coloured flowers, and the dirty-white Silene Saxijraga 

 — only worthy of a place in very large collections or in botanic 

 gardens. Silene rupestris, a sparkling-looking, dwarf, white 

 species, little more than three inches high when in bloom, and 

 reminding one of a dwarf J", alpestris, is better worthy of a place. 

 Silene pendula, a handsome, rose-coloured, biennial plant, now 

 much used in the spring flower garden, is well worthy of being 

 naturalised in stony or bare sandy places. 



SMILACINA -BTEOUA..— Two-leaved S- 



A SMALL plant, allied to the Lily-of-the-valley, but with smaller 

 whitish flowers in close erect racemes or spikes, from one inch 

 to one inch and a half long, on stems three to six inches high, 

 each flowering-stem having usually two leaves, heart-shaped, but 

 with the lobes and points somewhat elongated ; the radical leaves 

 larger, rounder, and heart-shaped. A very graceful and easily- 

 grown little plant, found in woody places, and common on the 

 Continent and in America in moist and mountain woods. It 

 is found very plentifully near Scarborough, and occurs in Caen 

 Wood, at Hampstead, and one or two other places in Britain, 

 but probably is not truly wild. In cultivation it thrives either 

 in shaded places, or, when fully exposed, forms crowded 

 tufts of smooth leaves, a few inches high, freely spiked with 

 flowers in early summer. It is most ornamental when it has 

 spread into tufts a foot or eighteen inches in diameter, the chief 

 care required being to keep the spot in which it grows free 

 from coarser plants. It may be tastefully used in the rock- 

 garden or in bare mossy spots near the hardy fernery, and is 

 easily increased by division of its creeping white root-stalk. 



