A COLLECTING DAY ABOVE AROLLA 91 



yellow. Do not overfeed A. vitaliana with too rich soil, 

 and you will never have any complaint to make of him. 



There are some other noteworthy species, too, in the 

 carnea group. Brigantiaca makes larger rosettes, but is 

 otherwise very similar, with bigger heads of rather pallid 

 pink flowers; hedraeantha is much more brilliant, yet 

 broader-leaved, with flowers of a fine rose. This is a 

 novelty, hailing from the Balkans, and both species are 

 quite decently easy in any fair cultivation. I have hedrae- 

 antha in the moraine, where it throve splendidly for a 

 time, and will probably do so again as soon as it has 

 recovered from the oppressive attentions of a mouse. 



All these rosy Androsaces, of course, would be even 

 more beautiful than they are — this is horrid ingratitude, 

 but also truth — if they did not have that faint, faint 

 lilac-magenta tone which so frequently interferes with 

 the purity of colour in the Primulas and their near 

 relations — of whom, of course, Androsaces are about the 

 nearest. Laggeri is, by many lengths, the best of its 

 kin, a tiny version of carnea, so minute in growth that its 

 spreading tufts might be taken for those of some small 

 Hypnum. However, it soon enlightens you as to its 

 charms by sending up a dozen little stems or more, each 

 crowned with a head of golden-eyed rosy flowers, the 

 most brilliant of all their kind — if you except the im- 

 possible g-Zociafo. A. Laggeri loves a warm, loose bank 

 of gritty peat — at least, it does here in a moist climate, 

 and is a lovely treasure beyond price — especially as, being 

 a wiry-haired species, it needs no apparatus to ward off 

 winter-rain. 



Androsace lactea is a link between the others, and the 

 annual and biennial species. It is, as a matter of fact, 

 very pretty ; and yet, so very misrepresentative of the 

 name it bears that I can never love it quite as much as 

 it deserves. It has big rosettes of smoothish dark green 



