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CRUCIFERAE 67 



species, then, want a dry, hot crevice — at least in such a 

 climate as mine — and are supposed to have a love of 

 limestone, though I have never found them exacting as 

 to soil. And if they grow too straggly, or have dead- 

 looking boughs, the whole plant should be snipped hard 

 back, like a Box, and then it will make a neat mass again. 

 The Wall-flowers have given me a great deal of dis- 

 appointment. Erysimum pachycarpum I liked, and its 

 deep orange flowers rejoiced me. But then it turned out 

 either mifFy or biennial or both, so that I think I no 

 longer possess it. Ochrokucum — whose synonyms are 

 lanceolatum and Cheiranthics — I got seed of, which 

 germinated so freely that now it is the burden of my 

 life. It makes a good border-edging plant, with hard 

 cutting, as it forms neat lumps of a bright darkling 

 green, with thousands of fragrant large lemon-yellow 

 flowers. But it is too rank for the choice rock-garden. 

 Then, fired by a most wonderful coppery-orange illustra- 

 tion, I imported Erysimum comatum from Servia at vast 

 expense. The habit of the plants, very long, narrow 

 leaves in a fine rosette, is lovely, but those flowers that 

 should have been so brilliant, turned out ragged in shape 

 and substance, and of a pale quite uninteresting citron 

 yellow. However, the plant is as robust as such undesir- 

 able aliens frequently are. Of the dwarfs Erysimum 

 pumilum and Erysimum petrozvsManum, I have a better 

 tale : they are very wee, delicate, and pretty, well worth 

 a little extra trouble in the way of a choice corner. 

 Purpureum, too, is a real gem to do with — quite small, 

 with large flowers of a soft, sad purple, attractive and 

 effective. As for Tchihatchewia isatidea, which Mr. Robin- 

 son's (or M. Leichtlin's) flaming tale sent all the world in 

 quest of, I greatly fear he praised it prematurely : it proves 

 a shocking miff" and mimp, querulous, monocarpous, and 

 no prettier than Iberidella. 



