SILENES are not dedicated to Silenus, as the name might suggest, although a cynical dedication might be secured in that direction. The generic name refers to their stickiness, for they do not entrap flies in the way of the drosera and dionoea, but by the more vulgar way of daubing themselves with invisible treacle. We have a lot of them in the British flora, and one of the number, the white campion(Silene inflata), may be seen in stony counties grown as a hay crop, a purpose also served by its near relative the ragged robin or cuckoo flower (S. flos-cuculi), which may not infrequently be seen filling enclosed fields with its lovely flowers, and constituting the sole herbage for a crop of hay. The common red catch-fly (S. armeria), the moss campion (S. acaulis), the German catch-fly (S. viscaria), and the white catch-fly (S. vespertina), are the best of the Britishers for the decoration of the garden proper; but for the wild garden and the rough, damp parts of the shrubbery, the red campion (Lychnis diurna) and the ragged robin (S. flos-cuculi) are pre-eminently valuable.

But to furnish the rockery effectually, we must have certain of the species from the south of Europe, and the plant before us comes in force to declare itself a hardy garden plant of the first quality, though set down in the books as a half-hardy plant of the second quality. It is one of the most popular of rockery and bedding plants, being equally useful to form a shining clump in front of green saxifrages and sheets of sun-roses, or to dress a bed with the best of millinery, that will be full of high colour in the merry months of May and June. We have many such, of which, as examples, may be named the Alpine catch-fly (S. alpestris), with glittering white flowers; Elizabeth's (S. Elisabethae), with large rosy flowers; the marine (S. maritima), that shows a few white flowers all the summer long; the Pennsylvanian (S. Pennsylvanica), with purple flowers; and the autumnal flowering (S. Schafta), purplish-rose, a first-class rock plant, adapted also for grouping in the borders. For the insatiable collector there remain many more, such as the oriental (S. orientalis), with rosy flowers, and the cushion catch-fly (S. pumilio), of the most dwarfed growth of a true Alpine, the leafage forming a cushion, above which appear the large rosy flowers, in delightful freshness of form and colour.

These several species vary slightly in relative hardiness, but they are all hardy enough for the experienced cultivator of Alpine plants, who has a golden rule to cheat the frost when the frost appears to have a silver rule to cheat him. They all agree in requiring full exposure to light and air. Shelter they may have to advantage; but the shelter of a near ledge or shelf or cap of rock is far better for them than the shelter of near walls or trees, and a close, damp spot is one in which they will suffer from frost sooner than in any open place that is not literally ploughed by the east wind. But with all such plants losses will occur, and it is a part of the Alpine gardener's duty to provide accordingly, which brings us face to face with the golden rule.