34 ALPINES AND BOG-PLANTS 



beautiful shy Rhododendron dilatatum. Meanwhile, too, I 

 am haunted by a doubt whether the name or my memory 

 is false. As to my memory, I can absolutely swear— to 

 the glory of that rosy Azalea ; but have I, have I, after all 

 my trouble, succeeded in getting the right name ? To 

 doubt is weakness ; I must steel myself against it. But 

 the fact is that last year one of my few surviving plants 

 emitted one poor sad flower. It was magenta. It was 

 ugly. Yet there is the silver bark, there are all the other 

 details. Beyond question the bloom was only poor 

 because the plant was young and sad and homesick and 

 hectic. With restored health — if ever that arrives — will 

 come also the size, the purity, the radiance of tlie blossom 

 I adored at Chuzen-ji. 



After Rhododendron come Kalmia and Camellia (for I 

 have nothing to say of Stuartia, and Gordonia, and little 

 of rare, beautiful, white St. John's- Wort-flowered Eucry- 

 phia pinnatifidd). And the Kalmias are all failures here, 

 though once I had hopes, reading that the glorious 

 mountain Laurel occurs in heavy yellow loam as well as 

 in peat on its native mountains. But no ; big latifolia 

 and charming little angustifolia dislike me equally ; and 

 hardly less, too, the rare, delightful miniature form, 

 angustifolia alpina, which I collected in the Rockies. 

 This is an absolutely prostrate trailer, woody and wiry, 

 narrow-leaved, with brilliantly glowing little cups of 

 crimson. I had great difficulty in getting even incom- 

 plete roots, and my plants have never done anything 

 more than survive, and even that is more than I can claim 

 for the majority of them. It loves damp alpine hollows, 

 in peaty places, and, to all possessors of peat, might well 

 prove a treasure. 



Of Camellias, I have made but little out of alba plena 

 and Donckelaari, which are generally recommended for 

 outdoor culture. And reticulata, though I had it un- 



