ALPINES AND BOG-PLANTS 



much depth and fire, so bright an orange at the flower's 

 eye, that the little clustered cyclamens at the crown of 

 that frail stem have a strong charm — especially if you 

 collect this Dodecaiheon in its native haunts. I came 

 upon it high in the Canadian Rockies, near the last limit 

 of herbage. All around the stones were triumphing over 

 the vegetation ; above, in a vast amphitheatre, were walls, 

 screes, escarpments of naked rock, falling, in terrific arid 

 precipices, or long slopes of debris, towards a green icy 

 lake a thousand feet lower down. And here, nodding 

 amid the rare, sickly grasses, waved the ardent, few- 

 flowered clusters of the Dodecaiheon, and, as I gathered 

 up its roots, a striped squirrel — who must have been one 

 of the Twelve Gods in avatar — came and sat on a stone 

 and chittered angrily at me for removing his treasures. 

 But alas ! in cultivation, I have never succeeded in doing 

 anything with Dodecatheon integrifolium, though one 

 would have thought my soil and climate sufficiently 

 Alpine, sufficiently reminiscent of its own. 



Yet another large cousin of the Primulas there is, 

 which is good for a sheltered rich corner, not too select, 

 on the outskirts of the bog. This is Cortusa Matthioli, 

 whose variety grandljlora is better than the type and 

 better than the other species of Cortusa. These Cortusas 

 throw up each year large, bristly, soft green leaves, like 

 shaggy versions of the Wood-sanicle, or Primula sinensis, 

 and then, on a tall stem of about a foot, clusters of 

 pendent Primula stars, which are of a dark and brownish 

 red. They are interesting rather than brilliant, but are 

 well worthy of a place if you have room. 



