448 
JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
you that while it is for Alpines and such moisture-loving plants 
generally, that the aid of rocks or stones in planting is called in, 
yet rockeries have uses— partly similar, partly dissimilar — for 
other classes of plants. For Ferns and for bog or wood plants 
they are admirable homes, and this in sites (as under trees) 
where no true Alpine wall flourish. Not infrequently the site 
proposed for a rockery is a bank running forward from trees, 
and running back under them. Of course the nearness of the 
tree roots must always make such positions culturally bad. But 
if these objections can be mitigated, or if need compels that they 
be borne with, such a site may be pleasingly utilised by furnish- 
ing the rockery beneath the trees with ferns and w^ood plants 
and the front w^ith the robuster sorts of ordinary Alpine and 
rock plants. 
I believe also I am rightly informed that rockeries are now 
not unknow^i in the stove-house for Orchids and the like. And 
those acquainted with the Riviera will recall how in many grea.t 
gardens there, more especially at Monte Carlo, large arid 
rockeries make the most effective homes for Aloes, Cactus, 
Agaves, and other heat-loving plants. Of such, however, I need 
not further speak. 
Not further to digress, let me now indicate generally the 
classes of shrubs and plants of evergreen or persistent foliage 
which best go to make the permanent framework, and so the 
winter beauty, of rockery or rock-garden. 
First and foremost are the dwarf, or pigmy, conifers — 
generally round-headed, flat, even bullet-headed. Among the 
Abies excelsa, or Mountain Spruce, are found a number of 
invaluable dwarf varieties, all too little seen. Some of the- 
following are probably entitled to specific rank, and are not 
varieties merely : — Abies clanbrasiliana, A. Bemonti, A.2)i/gvicea, 
A. immiliOj and many others, all of truly mountain character. 
Then the dwarfer Junipers are admirable for the purpose ; for, 
besides some better known kinds, they contribute creeping and 
procumbent species, like taniarascifolia, yrostrata, cuyressoideSy 
and others, whose form, while much wanted to clothe many posi- 
tions in the rock-garden, is not at all so well supplied by perhaps 
any other genus. Among these Junipers, too, are found two- 
really beautiful little Tom Thumb species, or varieties, in 
J. cchinoformis and /. liihcrnica nana coinjmcta. I scarcely 
