THE MOUNTAIN BOG 231 



fusion, and blooms far on into autumn — an altogether 

 indispensable delight. Silene pusilla is a most exquisite 

 thing, a miniature of rupestris, identical in all respects 

 but reduced to the most diminutive proportions. I doubt 

 if it has quite the robust constitution of its big sister ; in 

 any case it should have a very choice corner of the bog — 

 if only on account of its minute loveliness. Silene saoci- 

 fraga is a spidery-growing rock-plant, interesting, but 

 not brilliant, with creamy flowers, brownish on the 

 outside. 



Most brilliant of the race is Silene Elizabethae, from 

 hot moraine-slopes of Northern Italy, dwarf, sticky- 

 leaved, with immense flowers like those of a ClarMa, 

 which produce — at least they have produced with me — 

 abundance of sound and fertile seed. This plant loves 

 the moraine-garden, or a warm, well-drained slope in 

 light soil ; as for the slugs, they adore it as an article of 

 diet. Silene Pumilio is similar, but smaller — a difficult 

 thing, I have always found it, craving something which 

 I could not supply, though I have tried peat and granite 

 and silver sand and everything that seemed at all likely. 

 At last, however, some pot-plants in sharp, light loam 

 are thriving well. Silene virginica, from hot Virginia, 

 is gorgeous, with huge scarlet flowers, but I have no 

 hopes of ever succeeding with so miffy a Southerner ; 

 another tall Silene is Zawadskyii, which makes promising- 

 looking rosettes of glossy green foliage (like Primula 

 clttsiand), and then sends up stems of dull, disappointing 

 flowers. Remains only Silene Schqftae, a useful dwarf 

 border-plant, with abundance of magenta-rose flowers 

 through late summer and autumn. Asterias is an annual, 

 so is canvpacta — big, brilliant things, greyish, glaucous- 

 leaved with spreading heads of big red flowers ; beautiful 

 dwarf palaestina, with abundance of soft rosy flowers, is 

 painfully half-hardy. As a rule, to tell truth, all pink 



