180 ALPINES AND BOG-PLANTS 



last highest limit of the Alpine pastures, and the first 

 stretches of stone that lead upwards to the moraines. 

 For the remaining Groundsels, at least those of value for 

 our gardens, are genuine Alpines. First of all in order of 

 merit, facile princeps in my heart, and certainly the best 

 for gardening purposes, is Senecio Doronicum. This you 

 do not see until Arnica has given up the climb in 

 despair, and remains below you on the upper slopes. As 

 you go higher and higher, over the fine turf of Alpine 

 clover and Azalea procuvibens, you come at last upon 

 Senecio Doronicimi. In growth, shape, and colour of leaf 

 this is not unlike pulcher, though rather smaller than 

 pulcher at its finest. But the blue-grey leaves, with their 

 snowy reverse, the grey stems, the grey calyces are clothed 

 with a fine soft tomentum, which gives the whole plant a 

 delicate efffect of silver. The flower-stalks carry only 

 one or two blooms, but these are much larger than those 

 of pulcher, and of a fierce, penetrating, deep orange, 

 which, for profound intensity of beauty, I can match with 

 no other yellow, and which contrasts, too, most gorgeously 

 with the moony argent of the leaves. This glowing 

 treasure blooms in midsummer, and is far too seldom 

 seen in cultivation, being as easy and indestructible as its 

 cousin the common Groundsel. Silver tomentum also 

 clothes our own very rare native, Senecio spatulaefolius, 

 from Mickle Fell, as well as Senecio campestris, of which 

 it is a form. But these, with ordinary yellow flowers, are 

 so much less lovely than Doronicum that the silver 

 tomentum in their case may be called white wool. 

 Senecio adonidifolius is a coarse little weed, with ferny 

 foliage and wide heads of small golden flowers ; beauti- 

 ful little aurantiacus is much smaller, with foliase as fine 

 as a Camomile, and fewer, larger flowers of a dark, 

 flaming orange. This, however, is a true Alpine, for the 

 choicest part of the rock-garden, in granitic soil, and has 



