126 ALPINES AND BOG-PLANTS 



seed a fat, stalwart plant, exactly like a fine common 

 species, but with flowers which, though on some specimens 

 indistinguishable from the ordinary Daisy, are on others of 

 a bright crimson. Now I know the true sylvestris is said 

 to be red-flowered, but the question is whether my plant, 

 considering its reversions to the ordinary whites of Bellis 

 perennis, is more than an unusually bright-coloured strain 

 of the common Daisy. Bellium minutum is the treasure 

 of this group — a wee, wee plant, like a Daisy looked at 

 through the wrong end of a telescope — a most fascinat- 

 ing miniature of a thing. This is a rare Levantine, and 

 is delicate unless you give him a dry, hot comer, with the 

 sharpest possible drainage. 



The Alpine Yarrows and Camomiles are plants I am 

 rather conscientious about than enthusiastic. Too often, 

 as in Achillea atrata, and its congeners, the white is of 

 an unworthy, dirty tone; even in moschata and the 

 purer colours, the white is apt to be very hard and dead 

 and cold. There is something, too, a little weedy and 

 ill-bred about the look of the plants — an astonishing 

 thing for species so high-Alpine. But Clavennae and 

 Jaborneggi and Kellereri are really beautiful — each with 

 silver-white leaves and heads of more or less brilliant 

 blossoms. Achillea serbica is a rare new plant, forming 

 mats of grey-leaved branches and large flowers of a rather 

 cold grey-white. But, among my importation bloomed 

 one most lovely silver-leaved plant with larger flowers, 

 pure and snowy. I hope to see more of this, if the 

 winter has not alienated him beyond reconciliation. As 

 for the larger Yarrows, honestly, I find them all ' gawky 

 weeds.' Mongolica and ptarmica, ' the Pearl,' are very 

 well for a rough border, so, perhaps, is the red version of 

 the common millefolium — if you do not dread the risk 

 of a possible pest. But as a class, these plants are far 

 too coarse for the choice rock-garden, and not beautiful 



