52 
Carl Purdy, Uriah, California 
SILENES 
Silenes are popularly known as Catchfly or Wild Pink. They are related to 
the Pinks and those I offer grow naturally in rocks or in gravelly soil and take 
wonderfully to the rock garden. 
WESTERN AMERICAN SILENES are especially fine. S. Hookeri and S. 
Ingrami share equal honors for a place among the world’s twelve best rock 
garden plants while S. Californica is not far behind. All three have deep reach¬ 
ing fleshy tap roots from the tip of which very many slender tendrils reach 
laterally through the soil to produce such a lovely plant as that pictured above. 
They thrive among rocks or in any well drained slightly gritty soil, either in 
sun or shade. The fleshy root should be planted with its top 1 y 2 inches below 
surface and the tendrils should be carefully laid laterally and upward to just 
the surface of soil. Perfectly hardy. 
Californica is stronger and more broadly spreading and may make a clump 
18 in. across and a foot or more high, even climbing among bushes to 3 ft. The 
glowing cardinal red flowers are 1 V 2 inches across and come throughout the 
late spring and summer. Prefers a quite gritty, deep soil. Each 25 cts.; 
3 for 65 cts. 
Hookerii. This delightful plant is very like 8. Ingrami, pictured above, but 
the stems are prostrate and not over 2 in. high and the exquisite flowers, 
usually solitary, are 1 % to 2 in. across and of a delicate soft pink with a lovely 
contrasting white halo at center, the petals more deeply and finely cut than 
those of 8. Ingrami. 25 cts. each; 3 for 65 cts. 
Ingrami, so beautifully pictured above, needs little description. About 3 
inches high, it may spread to a foot or more across with many erect stems 
crowned with Powers 1 % to 2 in. across and of a uniform deep pink. Intro¬ 
duced in 1933, it is one of the real acquisitions to fine rock plants and in 
England won the Award of Merit of the R. H. S. 50 cts. each; 3 for $1.25. 
Silene Ingrami 
SHOOTING STAR. See Dodecatheon. 
