102 ALPINES AND BOG-PLANTS 



looking thing — at least in the form I knew and loved years 

 since — with thin, wiry leaves and stems, crowned by three 

 or four immense golden blooms. But olympicum, I found, 

 required starvation ; in good soil he grew lumpish, and 

 the flowers tried to come out all at once, and made 

 a jumble of it, and looked stodgy and vulgar. And then 

 the plant died ; and those I have now don't look to me 

 quite the same thing — their leaves seem rounder, some- 

 how, and thicker. However, I shall not be able to decide 

 until they bloom. Hypericum cuneatu/m is a small, new 

 Alpine which I have only just got; and Hypericum 

 diffusum, another rarer treasure, was given me some 

 years since, in cutting form, but failed to do any 

 good. 



The two bracketed glories of the race are Hypericum 

 reptans and Hypericum Coris. Reptans is a Himalyan, 

 absolutely prostrate, falling over rock-faces in a dense 

 cascade of little ovate leaves. The flowers appear from 

 July to the end of October here, and are as large as a five- 

 shilling bit — rose-red externally, and inside, of the love- 

 liest radiant soft yellow, so pure and luminous that they 

 make you look round on a dull day to see where the sun- 

 light is falling from that so kindles them. The plant is un- 

 imaginably good-tempered, too, and resents neither wind 

 nor weather ; only plant it high on the rock-work that it 

 may stream down in a curtain at eye-level, and show the 

 fresh radiance of its pale golden suns. In spring its mats 

 look dead and drear as Ulalume, but before very long 

 they break up from the base, and soon the whole blessed 

 process of development is in fuU swing. The plant can 

 be raised with equal ease from seed or cuttings, and on 

 every account — being absolutely without fault, either of 

 appearance or demeanour — ranks high in the first half- 

 dozen Alpines of one's choice. There is also a Hypericum 

 repeals, a pretty creature — but reptans so knocks all 



