234 ALPINES AND BOG-PLANTS 



amber flowers, I have realised, this year, the superior 

 grace and beauty of two Auricula-forms, similis and 

 Obristii, with long trumpets of a lovely rich yellow. And 

 bellunensis is even richer in tone, of a yellow deepening 

 towards orange — magnificent ; then among Viscosas comes 

 the new apemiina, a gem of gems, very rare and untried. 

 But this is a fine thriver, nobly floriferous, with round 

 heads, on dwarf stems, of very large, round, overlapping 

 flowers, gently pink, with a dim white eye — more beautiful 

 than even Cottia at its best. And then, again, I have 

 just flowered a new cousin of viscosa collected by a 

 neighbour, and quite the most gorgeous of its kind, con- 

 quering the finest Viscosas, Ciliatas, and Helveticas ; this is 

 a robust grower and very free, sending up stems of four or 

 six inches, crowned with a domed cluster of large flowers 

 — deep, dazzling purple, with a sharply defined white eye. 

 So far as I know, quite imperfectly, the tangled race of 

 Primula, this beauty has no name, and deserves a good one. 

 And now I will go on to say that rosea is the love- 

 liest thing for the bog that heart of man can desire, 

 growing in dense old tufts, with their feet in running 

 water — but it will do as well in damp ordinary soil — with 

 those matchless carmine flowers in very early summer. 

 Then comes pale snowy involucrata, sweet and holy little 

 plant, with glossy rounded leaves, and gracious upshoot- 

 ing stems, another glory of tthe bog or damp rock-work ; 

 Parryi, large, deep purple, splendid ; Deorum, with 

 smaller but no less handsome flowers (my plants have 

 now taken to flowering freely — but in spring, not in late 

 summer, as their native habit is) ; japonica, stalwart and 

 coarse, best fitted for the copse and rough outlying 

 stretches; new, gorgeous little biennial cockburninana, 

 with flowers of ardent orange ; Stuarti, if you can get it, 

 another giant species, with great heads of purple; 

 farinosa, of course, with its big brother longiflora, and 



