34 
THE CULTURE OF ALPINE PLANTS. 
THE CULTURE OE ALPINE PLANTS. 
LINNiEA BOREALIS. 
OOKING through, the range of ornamental gardening we find no class of plants that indi¬ 
cate better than Alpines the presence at least of pure taste and botanical knowledge. 
The possessor of a collection of these is always a person of superior intelligence, ac¬ 
quainted with at least some of the branches of botanical philosophy, and always pos¬ 
sessed of a decided love of nature, and of a taste guided alone by her laws, unbiassed 
by the influences of art. The increasing desire for Alpine plants among horticulturists 
seems to indicate an increasing regard for the simple poetry, as 
well as the science of nature. In a public garden a collection of 
Alpines is of great importance in a scientific point of view, affording 
the student opportunities of studying in a living state those forms 
of vegetation that adorn inhospitable regions he may never have an 
opportunity of visiting, as well as those whose native homes on the summits of our highest mountains 
are often as effectually beyond his reach. But the gradual, and by no means slow, extension of a 
taste for Alpines throughout society generally, which has of late years been especially observable, 
does not arise alone from the extension of botany as a science, but from a desire for the reproduction 
of those traits of simple beauty in nature, which poets of the Wordsworth school love to contemplate, 
and which we all associate with our purest emotions, and with the first dawning of poetic fancy on 
our nature-loving hearts. 
It is the purpose of the present papers to introduce, from time to time, to the attention of the readers 
of the Garden Companion some of the more interesting of the Alpine plants; and we have thought 
that we could not commence with a more appropriate subject than Linncea borealis ,—a plant whose 
intrinsic beauty and perfect applicability as an object of cultivation are only excelled by the interest 
and importance of its associations in the history of botany. Whether seen in its native fir woods, 
forming a carpet of leafy verdure, to the exclusion of every other plant, or as a garden specimen, 
enveloping with its dense foliage the pot in which it grows, it is alike an object of beauty and attrac¬ 
tion to every one whose eye is open to the loveliness of the vegetable world. But to the naturalist the 
Linncea is a plant of especial interest, commemorating as it does the memory of one whose name 
(whatever may be said of his system ) will long be venerated above all others by the votaries of natural 
science. 
We need scarcely mention that it is a beautiful little plant, with small trailing shrubby stems, and 
these entwining together and spreading in all directions amongst the thin grass of the wood, form 
bright green leafy patches, often of large extent, from which the graceful pendent flowers are produced 
somewhat sparingly, but sometimes in abundance. The flowers are said to be very fragrant at night 
with the scent of the Meadow-sweet; but this we have not observed. As Smith tells us, it was first 
found in “an old fir wood at Inglismaldie, on the borders of Mearnshire,” in 1795, by Professor James 
Beattie, junior; but since Beattie’s day many new stations have been discovered for the plant in 
different parts of Scotland, more particularly in the counties of Perth, Inverness, Edinburgh, Aberdeen, 
Kincardine, and Forfar. Only one locality is, however, recorded for it in England, viz., in a plantation 
of Scotch firs at Catcherside, in the parish of Hartburn, Northumberland, where it was discovered by 
Miss Emma Trevelyan. It generally grows in the open but shady parts of old fir woods. 
In regard to the cultivation of this plant, it may be remarked that the nature of its native habitats 
would seem to indicate a plant of difficult culture, and such is indeed the prevalent opinion respecting 
it. This is however erroneous. Few plants so peculiar in the choice of native stations stand cultiva¬ 
tion so well, and few that are so decidedly partial to the shade, stand exposure to sunshine with so 
happy results. It ought, of course, to be quartered in the frame of Alpines; but on being planted 
should receive a larger pot than almost any other species, in order that it may have room to extend its 
procumbent wiry shoots. In the preparation of the soil, decayed leaves and rotten wood ought to form 
^- - — 
