124 ALPINES AND BOG-PLANTS 



useful — Fremonti especially notable from its large, rosy- 

 purple blossoms. Kabuliais is a woody shrub, and bears 

 rather pallid stars. Cassiarabicus proves magnificent, a 

 far more bushy, voluminous, and brilliant Amellus with 

 profusion of big, deep-purple blooms. Townsendi is a 

 synonym of Bigelovii, a handsome lilac biennial. Aster 

 latifolius and Aster canescens are rare, and more usually 

 known as Machaerantha — the one is glabrous and leafy, 

 the other silky grey ; both bear large gorgeous blossoms 

 in varying shades of Imperial violet. Canescens, though 

 it has survived the winter, is of rather frail, biennial- 

 looking habit, with one main stem that seems as if it will 

 only throw lateral growths as a matter of exceptional 

 courtesy ; Latifolius is more genuinely perennial, but both 

 are American species and like warm light soil, with very 

 effectual drainage and as much sun as possible. I have tried 

 to believe in their hardiness, but they won't allow me. 



Another pretty American is Fendleri, which has made 

 no great impression on my mind, while yet another 

 Yankee, Porteri, is a very great friend of mine, neat, 

 light, and feathery in growth, with showers of small 

 snowy stars — a robust little plant of exemplary grace and 

 beauty. Aster diplostephioeides is an obscure species, so 

 far doubtfully in cultivation. I have seedlings of it on 

 good authority, which I hope may prove true, but the 

 plant which has been sold for it of late years is the true 

 Aster sub-coeruleus, a species no less valuable and very 

 similar, the main difference lying in the colour of the 

 eye-florets, which in sub-coertiletis are golden, and in 

 diplostephioeides bluish. Aster sub - coeruleus makes 

 masses of handsome foliage in big rosettes, and then, in 

 June, sends up a number of naked stems about a foot 

 high or more, each carrying one very large bright violet 

 flower. It is thus an edition-de-luxe of alpinus, even 

 more vigorous and less slug-haunted. As for the better- 



