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A year ago I sowed seed by the ounce each of A. alpina and of A. sulphurea, but as yet not a single plantlet has rewarded me for my trouble. Even freshly gathered seeds of A. narcissiflora will not germinate with me, but I live in hopes of surmounting little difficulties of this kind, and in the mean time, perhaps, others more fortunate will tell us how to amend our unsuccessful ways.

These have produced hybrids of almost indescribable beauty, the flowers of which range in colour from crimson and pink, through orange and yellow, to almost white. Within the last few years quite an interesting race of Rhododendrons has been brought out, with double or hose-in-hose flowers, and very appropriately termed the Narcissiflora group.

Viscocephala. Double-flowered Rhododendrons: Bijou de Gendbrugge. Graf Von Meran. Heroine. Narcissiflora. Louis Aimée Van Houtte. Mina Van Houtte. Ophirié. Van Houttei. Ground Cistus. Alps of Austria and Bavaria, 1786. A very handsome shrub, of small growth, and widely distributed in Bavaria, Switzerland, and elsewhere.

It is when we come to the aristocratic Alpine forms, to A. alpina, A. sulphurea, A. narcissiflora, etc., that difficulties alike of propagation and of culture test our skill to the uttermost. Tourists fond of gardens walk over these plants in bloom every year; they dig up roots and send them home; but they are as yet very rare in even the best of gardens. Nor is it easy to rear them from seeds.