A COLLECTING DAY ABOVE AROLLA 77 



our English Houseleek, is good and useful. Not far off 

 are triste, Wulfeni, Reginae-Amaliae. Rubicundum is 

 smaller than these last, rare, and very rich in colour, the 

 whole rosette being deep ruby-claret. But of the larger 

 species the finest, to my taste, is the rather uncommon 

 Gaudini from the Southern Alps. The rosettes of this 

 are big, ball-like, clear green, and furry with innumerable 

 small bristles. It sends out babies on long feelers, and 

 carries a stout head of lemon yellow flowers like Catherine- 

 wheels. Gaudini, too, thrives here far better than most 

 of its kindred, and in more ordinary soil. Sempervivum 

 calcaratum, if what I have is true, and not confused with 

 calcareum, is magnificent in size and shape ; and Laggeri 

 is a charming wee thing, half the size of little arach- 

 Twideum, but otherwise similar, with the same downy 

 white globes. For all these — at least in the rainy North 

 — I advise as little soil as possible, some mere crevice in 

 a rock with a pinch of earth, exposed to every ray of sun, 

 and as little troubled by rains as you can manage. And 

 if you wish to specialise on Sempervivum — and you could 

 have no worthier subject — there are Houseleeks beyond 

 number, as the sands of the sea, all more or less casuisti- 

 cally differentiated from the species I have mentioned, 

 which represent the typical beauties of the race, — dainty 

 and delightful as is every other Sempervivum that has 

 ever been glorified with a name to itself. 



The way grows hotter as it mounts, and there is no 

 stick or twig of shelter. The heat seems almost too 

 much for all flowers except the Salamander -hearted 

 Sempervivums, for the only other thing which the slopes 

 above Evolena yielded me was a single, narrow, purple 

 spike of Campanula spicata. But erelong the way leads 

 on into a scattered woodland where Campanula pttsilla 

 runs riot over the sun-dappled stony slope between the 

 rare trees. In light and shade it thrives equally, and 



