BETWEEN DIANTHUS AND EPILOBIUM 111 



galtis Vandasii takes a high place, so beautiful, yet so 

 robust, and this without loss of delicacy, for his whole 

 habit is ferny and graceful, and he never spreads from his 

 one crown.^ 



The Woundworts, of whom we have a bright specimen 

 in Anihyllis vulneraria, of any limestone down, are good, 

 easy-going creatures, of whom the rosy Anthyllis montana 

 is the best, though the pink and white forms of vulneraria 

 sound delightful. But these I have never possessed. 



Of the Clovers, the only one that can fitly enter the 

 rock-garden is T. alpinum (my manager grows canescens 

 with enthusiasm, but I think it gawky and dull) ; he is a 

 dwarf trailer, with immense rosy flowers, very handsome, 

 but so obstinately difficult to uproot that I have never 

 yet got him satisfactorily acclimatised. You find him on 

 the topmost ridges of the Alp, up to the edge of the 

 moraine. And a beautiful strip of ground that is- — soft 

 and trim and firm as any tennis-court — a neat sward 

 made up of nothing but flowers — TrifoUum alpinum, 

 tiny willows, Oxytropis montana, or pyrenaica, Silene 

 acaulis. Azalea proaimbens, Gentiana nivalis. Oocytropis 

 is represented in gardens by some very lovely, ill-reputed 

 species. Pyrenaica, montana, Halleri, and lapponica are 

 all delightful dwarfs, with heads of brilliant blue-purple 

 flowers. But they are found difficult to acclimatise. I have 

 succeeded with montana and pyrenaica ; the others have 

 failed. Oocytropis campestris is taller, fluffy, woolly, and 

 dull yellow, rather ugly, whose only interest is that he is 

 found on one rock in the mountains near Braemar, in that 

 prolific block of country which gives us also Saodfraga 

 cernua and Saxifraga rivularis, Lactuca alpina, Gentiana 

 nivalis, and Myosotis alpestris. Two North American 

 Oxytropids are splendens and hybrida; hybrida seems 



1 Astragalus Vandasii must lose marks ; he is not genuinely hardy 

 with me : at least he dwindles. 



