14 ALPINES AND BOG-PLANTS 



bloomed nitida alba, pure white against the pure silver of 

 the foliage, would be one of the loveliest little plants of 

 the rock-garden. All forms of Potentilla nitida, too, grow 

 with the most perfect ease and good humour in any fair 

 soil, in any sunny spot, and multiply from cuttings liite 

 any bedding Viola. The plant's only fault, and one to 

 be very carefully guarded against, is a tendency to go to 

 sleep in rich soil, and prove to be painfully shy about 

 flowering. This, however, can be remedied by planting 

 it in rubble and dust. I have not yet tried it in the 

 Moraine-garden, but it will probably succeed there and 

 bloom abundantly. Very similar, too, in habit is the 

 rare newcomer, apennina, of which my one plant 

 looks a twin of nitida, though I believe the flowers are 

 white. 



Over such diverse-seeming species as Potentilla, Rubus 

 and Spiraea does Rosa extend the shelter of its great 

 name, and now, in due course, we come to deal with the 

 roses. For the most part these are middling shrubs (I 

 shall scarcely talk of the garden kinds, the doubles, and 

 hybrids), very welcome on the upper banks of the rock- 

 garden. But the first in merit for big and little terri- 

 tories alike is Rosa alpina, a small, neat, dense shrub, 

 finely thorny, with abundant lovely flowers of a deep 

 velvety crimson, and sweetly, richly fragrant beyond any 

 rose I know. On a warm day the hot, deep sweetness of 

 this rose's scent is something almost vertiginous. Then, 

 when the flowers are fallen, succeed long scarlet heps that 

 prolong the charm of the plant till far into the autumn. 

 Rosa alpina is so easy-going and sturdy a species that it 

 will fend freely for itself if cast out unprotected in the 

 woods (indeed I wonder that it has never appeared as a 

 native), and, at the same time, it is so concise and modest 

 in growth that no one need be afraid to admit it into 

 even the smallest of gardens. Similar in size, but much 



