THE CHEDDAR PINK— continued. 
probably the very glaucous variety glauca of D. deltoides , which has white petals with 
a violet ring round the centre of the blossom. The grand gorge in the Mendips, 
the sole habitat in England of the D. glaucus of Hudson, from which it takes its 
name of Cheddar Pink, does not seem to have been botanically explored until Samuel 
Brewer, a native of the neighbouring town of Trowbridge, who collected for 
Dillenius, found it there, as recorded in the “ Synopsis.” The locality is there 
printed as “ Chidderroks.” 
There, where ivy-clad grey limestone rocks rise sheer with stepped summits 
like battlemented turrets, or stand out from the cliff-like walls as massive natural 
buttresses frowning dark over the narrow roadway, but bearing scattered bushes and 
lower growth aloft toward the sun, this choice rarity grows with the equally local 
Mountain Meadow-rue ( Thalictrum montanum Wallroth) on many an inaccessible 
ledge. The cottagers of the neighbourhood collect it and offer it for sale to the 
tourist visitor ; but fortunately it is readily and profitably increased by cultivation 
in their gardens, and is also protected from complete extermination by the absolute 
inaccessibility of some of the plants. 
It is a tufted plant, with long, slender woody branches to its perennial root- 
stock ; linear smooth leaves one and a half to two inches long, with a blue-grey bloom, 
a rough edge, and three prominent veins ; and solitary flowers about an inch in diameter. 
These delicate pale rose-coloured blossoms are delightfully fragrant. They have 
four roundish, pointed bracts at the base of the reddish calyx, and the petals are 
irregularly toothed at their broad ends. Some specimens produce flowers exclusively 
female. 
It is admirably adapted for an edging to a flower-border or for massing on a 
rockery. It likes a well-drained warm soil with humus and some shelter ; and, as 
it ripens its seed freely, it can be propagated by seed. It is, however, much easier 
to multiply the plants by dividing them during mild weather in early autumn or in 
spring ; or they can also be increased by layering. 
The species is often known by the name D. c<£sius Smith, from its bluish 
foliage ; but Hudson’s name is the earlier. 
