ed by a longer one titled "Plants forthe Cold Greenhouse," this time describingtwenty-seven plants collected in<strong>North</strong> Africa, the south of Europe, andin California (and this provenance isprophetic.) As a sample of Dwight'sability to capture in words the essenceof a species let me quote from thisarticle:Astragalus coccineus. This is not only byfar the most sensational member of its genus,it is also one of the very finest alpines to befound anywhere in the United States; thoughmany may take exception to the epithet "alpine"as applied to a species of the highdeserts of California. It occurs here and therefrom Inyo County to the western edge of theColorado Desert, at an altitude of 3,000-8,000feet, growing for preference on apparentlybone-dry slopes almost devoid of vegetation,but with the soil quite damp a few inchesbeneath the surface, round the long, deeplyburrowing taproot. The leaves are clothed indense white silk (as are also the seed-pods),and from their snowy mats rise up in earlyspring, on short stems, the heads of comparativelyfew pea-flowers, nearly two incheslong, of intense scarlet. One's first glimpse ofthis plant is unforgettable, an excitement hardto match and harder still to communicate toothers. The finest specimens I ever saw weregrowing on the sides of a small canyon nearLone Pine, at the eastern base of Mt. Whitney,where the desert sand had not yet cededto the influence of the mountain conifers.There it was obviously happy, revelling in thedeep gravel that contained not a trace of humus— undisputed king of that particularcastle except for an annual Gilia or two anda bright red Castilleja, faint echo of its owninimitable splendour. It may be grown, notwithout difficulty, in a very deep pot filledwith granite chips and coarse sand, plungedto the rim in ashes; and the crown should beguarded from water as rigorously during thesummer as in the darkest days of winter.He rounds out the alphabetical paradeof plants from diverse areas with thisaccount:Statice (Limonium) asparagoides. This Staticeis a native of the sea-shore at Nemours,Astragalus coccineusR. Barneby180
in Algeria, whence it extends to a single pointjust over the Moroccan border; and its rarityis only equalled by its beauty. Would that onecould say the same of Nemours! For here indeedis a plague-spot, as hideous and profoundlydepressing as the drabbest of thoseSpanish fishing-villages which display for thepassing tourist, between the sea and the southernbase of the Sierra Nevada, their ownpeculiar horror. In order to reach the Staticeone has to pass the local slaughter-house,jumping lightly (handkerchief to nose) overthe gully that drains its unnameable foulnessesinto the bright waters of the Mediterranean.But there, waiting in the shadow,lurks the prize, a few young plants perchedwithin reach upon their steep escarpment ofred gypsum. The older plants are out ofreach: enormous black trunks sprawling andtwisting over the cliff's face, from which eruptat intervals the long leafless branches as fineas filigree and rimed with blue, more intricateeven than the fronds of Asparagus acutifolius.In reality they are composed of verymany minute branchlets, interminably dichotomous,covered all over with little cladodesof the same length as themselves. The basalleaves are small and ovate, dying away soonafter the branches begin their growth; theinflorescence is produced in August, and turnsout to be a generous panicle of cerise. Cuisin'splate of this Statice in the "lllustrationesFlorae Atlanticae" is among the most inspiredtours de force to be found in any of thegreat botanical works.One can forgive, I think, his flourish ofscholarship at the end.His next piece, titled simply "In theMediterranean", is a more leisurely accountof yet another journey withRupert Barneby, who is now officialphotographer. There are two ofRupert's superb photos illustrating Matthiolatricuspidata and Iberis candoleanaaccompanying the article.Dwight begins his essay:In January of last year, accompanied by myfriend Rupert Barneby, who took the photographsillustrating this article, I visited CapePalinurus, famed locality of the unique PrimulaPalinuri, lying more than eighty milessouth of Naples on the way to Calabria — aremote and undramatic promontory isolatedbetween stretches of mountainous coast,marked only by a little striped lighthouse anda cluster of fishermen's huts. Centola, perchedon a hill a short way inland, is the nearestvillage, and if you descend from here thePrimula is almost the first plant you see onarriving at the shore. It is worth the fivehours' journey from Salerno to witness thebizarre spectacle of an Auricula, so essentiallyalpine in appearance, growing down bythe very edge of the Tyrrhenian. The largeglandular rosettes, usually single, more rarelyseveral to the trunk, sit quite happily a fewfeet above the dark blue sea, listening, not tocow-bells or the chatter of excited spinsterson their first trip to the Engadine, but tofishermen's more ordinary talk and the musicof waves falling on a southern beach. Thearchdeacon of rock-gardening, who never sawthis plant in situ, describes it with what canonly be called genius as occurring on "limestonecliffs . . . where it lies baked and dustcoveredin the fine dry silt of the grottoes".In point of fact the Primula affects openbanks, so steep as to be almost vertical, of acurious orange-coloured sand, known technicallyas friable arenaceous tufa, which characterisesthis piece of coast and which I havenever seen elsewhere in the Mediterranean.But then the word "grotto" is irresistible.and ends:Returning home last summer, we stayed forseveral days in the Puy-de-Dome, prosaic yetto us exciting, while Rupert tracked downcritical Biscutellas among the scoriae of deadvolcanoes or in small granite gorges by theside of streams. A wind was blowing over thehigh plateaux, unbelievably cool after thestifling heat of Provence, and as we scuttledhappily from puy to puy, with the air becomingfresher and more bracing every day,we told each other that the Mediterraneanwas quite definitely overrated. That inn atCavaillon, for instance, had been beyond ajoke. And then, the mosquitoes. . . . Back inEngland, we revelled in the sight of lawnsand elm-trees, river-beds that ran with water,and the large grey clouds. Never again, wevowed, would we leave this paradise on earth.Two months later I found my friend poringover a road-map of Morocco. His bagswere almost packed, he said. It seemed therewas a Trachelium near Fez. . . .Again one can forgive his measuredthrust at Farrer.Then as a sort of final farewell tohis Old World explorations he has along piece called "A Journey ThroughSpain" about which he confesses:The following notes, to be frank, are nothingmore nor less than an expression of uncontrollednostalgia, a prolonged harping ona set of all too precise memories acquiredover a period of years spent in the moun-181
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