RANUNCULACEAE 51 



always thrilling, even if they are not beautiful — and all 

 they want is rich soil and to be left alone. Nothing 

 beats the snowy niger — such a preposterous paradox of a 

 name! But the bluish torquatus is attractive, indeed, 

 and so are the purple olympiats, the rose-red orientalis, 

 with its many varieties, the bright purple colchicus, the 

 native foetidus, like a fountain of pale-green foam, and, 

 I imagine — for I have never succeeded in getting it — 

 that marvellous plant, the true lividus, from Corsica, 

 which sounds like an enormous foetidus — a column of 

 spouting green spray. Luteus I have never had, and my 

 collection is not at all complete, worse luck ; but those I 

 do have give me a great wish to make it so, if ever I got 

 time to specialise on more than twenty specialities at once ! 

 The Adonises are very much praised as a rule. There 

 are three or four yellow Alpine species — wolgensis, 

 pyrenaica, vernalis, amurensis. These are so alike to the 

 casual eye as to need little differentiation. They all 

 have very finely divided leaves, like green clouds, and 

 large yellow flowers. But the yellow is always spoiled, 

 for me, by a certain acridity of tone. It is just tainted 

 with green, and has a bitter, thin, unpleasant shade. 

 I have never been able to like any Adonis, I am sorry to 

 say, except amurensis as one saw it used in the Japanese 

 toy-gardens. These toy-gardens are a landscape in a 

 pan a foot across — some range of hills, or river-bed, or 

 promontory by the sea. Tiny, tiny plum-trees stand on 

 the margin, aglow with blossom, beside some ancient 

 water-worn boulder, and there are generally two or 

 three wee golden buds of Jdonis amurensis coming out 

 of the ground like a dumpy little Aconite — ^just small 

 globes of gold, nothing more. In this stage it is a 

 treasure, but it loses all attraction for me as it grows large 

 and coarse, even as a slum-cat is delightful in the kitten- 

 stage, but erelong develops the full unattractiveness 



