COMPOSITAE 131 



the Old Garden — above whose glossy leaves its little 

 purplish clouds come hovering indomitably each July. 

 Adenostyles marks a doubt in my mind. I believe that 

 the plant I got with great effort from shady rocks near 

 Rosenlaui is not, as I had always thought, an Adenostyles, 

 but really the true Mulgedium alpinum, a beautiful tall 

 plant, with blue Dandelion flowers, of which Plumieri is 

 an exaggerated variety. As for the genuine Adenostyles 

 — the stout pink thing, with triangular leaves, white 

 underneath, that you find in the high pastures of Switzer- 

 land, is Adenostyles alpina — not a very interesting species, 

 and one that I have never bothered to collect — while the 

 only plant of the Dandelion group I have ever liked is the 

 white form of the common Dandelion itself, which grows 

 all over Tokio to the exclusion of the yellow type. Now 

 I have seed of this, and hope it may prove ti'ue. 



Of the Centaureas very few are really beautiful, I 

 think, though several are interesting for sterile banks. 

 Montana is quite useful thus, in all its varieties, and I 

 grow also rutaefolia — a straggler, with whitish leaves 

 and pretty, red flowers ; and also another white plant, 

 ragusina compacta. The Golden Rods, to me, are all 

 coarse and quite unworthy of culture, without exception ; 

 and the Hawk weeds, even, though pretty, are too dangerous 

 to admit. But valdepilosum is attractive, and so is auran- 

 tiacum, but a dreadful irrepressible weed. 



