COMPOSITAE 129 



over the sunny, dry pastures — its wide silver and white 

 blossoms lying tight on their thorny rosettes, and looking 

 like Water-lilies of silver tissue. In cultivation, liowever, 

 the plant wants quite poor, miserable soil or else it gets 

 coarse, developing a stem, and enlarging its leaves at the 

 cost of its brilliancy. The variety acanthifoUa I have 

 always thought much less fine, for the same reason — that 

 it is stalky, and not stemless. Our own Carlina vulgaris 

 is near these two, but lacks the whiteness of blossom. 

 The Saussureas look like little blue Thistles that have 

 been packed up in cotton wool and got it inextricably 

 twined among their flowers. They are not all distinct, 

 but the one I grow as candicans is distinctly pretty. As 

 for Cacalia and BrichelUa, I mention them here merely as 

 warnings. I bought them on the most flaring descrip- 

 tions from America, and I can solemnly affirm that as far 

 as my own taste goes, I do not think that even England pro- 

 duces two more totally graceless, dingy, overgrown weeds 

 than Cacalia tuberosa and Brickellia grandiflora — this 

 last, especially, of a dowdy gawkiness beyond expression : 

 and even more tragic is my tale of Myrrhiactis Wallichi, 

 which I got seed of from the Himalya, and grew on in a 

 perfect flutter of excitement, foreseeing promise of marvel- 

 lous beauty, in its name — for surely nothing named for 

 Wallich could be poor. Myrrhiactis prospered like a 

 weed — whole framefuls of little pots. At last its in- 

 numerable flower-stems swelled up and budded. Then the 

 flowers opened. They were like small groundsel-blossoms, 

 with the outer rays entirely omitted. Myrrhiactis de- 

 parted over the garden wall. 



The big blue Ball-Thistles are rather border- than 

 rock-garden plants ; however, I rejoice over Echinops 

 ruthenicus in a bold corner ; and now am expecting even 

 better things from my seedlings of the dwarfer-growing 

 Echinops humilis. Another huge great plant is Silphium 



