142 ALPINES AND BOG-PLANTS 



subulata in vigour or effectiveness. Stellaria is a beauti- 

 ful lax trailer, like a rather large subulata, making mossy 

 cascades down the rock- work, with abundance of very pale 

 French-grey flowers — a delicate, soft shade extremely 

 attractive. The form erubescens I cannot quite place in 

 my memory. I do not think it can be any improvement 

 on Stellaria. 



Amoena and pretty ovata, as far as my garden knows 

 them, are both bright and pleasant little plants, creeping 

 and ramping over the ground, though I cannot at present 

 accurately and definitely be certain which is really which, 

 and how they are each distinguished (if at all) from the 

 other. One dwarf Phlox that I have as nivalis is a 

 wonder of loveliness — close to Nelsoni, that snowy carpet- 

 marvel, and actually sustaining the comparison. And, 

 very similar, to be distinguished only by their rivalry in 

 beauty, are all those matcliless garden-carpets, the chil- 

 dren of subulata — Daisy Hill, Vivid, lilacina, annulata, 

 and the countless other sisters of Nelsoni. My favourite 

 of all, perhaps, is the beautiful Phlox divaricata — a 

 medium-habited thing, making a bush about a foot or 

 eighteen inches (dwarfer and more compact in Perry's 

 Laphami-torm of the synonymous canadensis). The 

 flowers are very large, like Periwinkles in size and colour 

 and shape, borne in wide loose heads, and scented exactly 

 like Lilium auratum. The cool, soft blue of this Phlox 

 makes the most glorious contrast imaginable with the 

 ardent splendour of the orange-vermilion Double Welsh 

 Poppy. And the Phlox is as vigorous and easy as the 

 Poppy with which it goes so well. In colour it has a 

 rival in suiulata G. F. Wilson (or lilacina), a fine rug of 

 moss, which is covered in early summer with such a 

 multitude of clear, electric-blue stars that all other Subu- 

 lata Phloxes are put to shame, and even Nelsoni has to 

 look to its laurels. But Phlox Vivid, thoueh small- 



