Part II. SOLDANELLA. 343 



SOLDANELLA KLSTSiK.— Alpine S. 



One of the most interesting plants that live near the snow-line 

 on many of the great mountain-chains of Europe — not brilliant, 

 but withal beautiful in its pendent, pale-bluish, open, bell-shaped 

 flowers, cut into numerous, narrow, linear strips, three or four 

 being borne on a stem from two to six inches in height, and 

 springing from a dwarf carpet of leathery, shining, roundish, 

 or kidney-shaped leaves, nearly entire or obscurely indented. It 

 is comparatively rare in gardens, is usually grown in pots, 

 included among subjects considered very difficult to cultivate, 

 and kept in frames, but if healthy young plants of it are placed 

 out of doors on the rockwork or a raised border, in a little bed 

 of deep and very sandy loam, they will be found to succeed per- 

 fectly well, especially in all moist districts, and in dry ones it 

 will be easy to prevent evaporation by covering the ground near 

 the young plants with some cocoa-fibre mixed with sand to give 

 it weight. I have seen a perfect carpet, several feet square, of 

 this plant growing on a bed of fine moist sandy earth on a flat 

 spot in an old rockwork, in this country, and no specimens I saw 

 in the Alps equalled it in luxuriance. The most suitable position 

 for the plant is a level spot on the rockwork near the eye. 



S. montana is very nearly allied to the preceding ; in fact, 

 except that it is usually somewhat larger in all its parts than 

 alpina, and the flowers are of a bluer purple, there is no great 

 difference in its character. It also inhabits several of the great 

 continental chains, and will be found to thrive under the same 

 treatment as the preceding. Both are readily increased by 

 division, though, as they are usually starved and delicate from 

 being confined in small worm-defiled pots, exposed to daily 

 vicissitudes, they are rarely strong enough to be pulled in pieces. 

 ■S". pusilla, with kidney-shaped leaves, heart-shaped at the base, 

 and the corolla not nearly so deeply cut into fringes, and the very 

 small 6". minima, with minute round leaves and one flower fringed 

 only for a portion of its length, are also in cultivation, though 

 rare. They will thrive under the same conditions, but, being 

 much smaller, especially the last, require more care in planting, 

 and should be associated with the most minute alpine plants, in 

 a mixture of peat and good loam with plenty of sharp sand, and 

 get abundance of water in summer, especially in dry districts. 



