184 JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
lateral cymose branches forming a flattish panicle i to 2 inches across. Buds 
ovate, blunt. Flowers many, | inch across, exceeding the pedicels. Calyx 
cup-shaped, lobes green, ovate, blunt, equalling the tube, persistent in fruit. 
Petals lanceolate to ovate, white, blunt, 2 to 3 times the sepals. Stamens spreading, 
nearly equalling the petals, filaments white, anthers purple. Scales broadly 
spathulate,' yellow. Carpels white, erect 5 erect also in fruit, when they are 
streaked red. 
Flowers July. Hardy. 
Habitat. — Europe, Siberia, W. Asia, N. Africa. 
A very common species in gardens, and quite naturalized .on walls 
and rocks in many parts of our own islands, but seldom if ever 
indigenous there. 
Very variable in leaf, different forms exhibiting in the garden 
a continuous series from linear (fig. 102, a, a) to almost globular 
(fig. 102, c, c) . Near the former end of the series lies the type, described 
by Linnaeus as " foliis oblongis," while at the other end are the 
forms described under the names Athoum DC. = brevifolium Boiss., 
turgidum DC, &c. Much variation is also found as regards the shape 
of the leaf in cross-section, some forms being more or less flattened 
while others are circular. Some of the long-leaved forms have even 
a groove down the middle of the upper face of the leaf. But in the 
garden, at least, there is little use in attaching names to any of these 
forms, since all are linked together by intermediates. The flowers 
vary also, as regards both length and breadth of petal (see fig. 102), 
and as regards colour, most fading with a rosy tinge, but some 
remaining quite white. 
Var. micranthum Bastard (pro specie). 
Illustrations. — Sowerby, "English Bot.," ed. 3, 4, pi. 529, fig. 2. Cusin 
and Ansberque, "Herb. Flor. Fran9aise, Crassul.," tal). 21. 
' EUe differt du 5. album parce que les feuilles des jeunes pousses 
sont dressees et non etal^es ; du S. turgidum par les feuilles cylin- 
driques pen ou point renflees ; de tons deux par ses fleurs de moiti6 
plus petites.' — Bastard in litt. ex De Candolle, "Flore Fran9aise," 
SuppL, p. 523. 
I quote the original description because there has been much 
looseness concerning this plant, the 5. micranthum of some authors 
and field botanists being only var. brevifolium Boissier (" folia caulina 
abbreviata ovato-oblonga ") with flowers as large as, or only slightly 
smaller than, those of the type. True 5. micranthum I have seen 
in cultivation only from specimens collected by several correspondents 
in the Pyrenees. Brevifolium and turgidum seem unworthy of 
varietal rank ; in that case the distinguishing character of micranthum 
remains : flowers half the size of those of the type. The flowers of 
my plants are | those of the type in diameter, which is rather less 
than J in area ; the plants are very small and compact, with leaves 
and stems shorter than in any of the dozens of album forms which 
I have grown. The occurrence ot true micranthum in the British Isles 
