DRABA aizoides.
Yellow Alpine Whitlow-grass.
TETRADYNAMIA Siliculosa.
Gen. Char. Pouch entire, long-oval: valves fiattish,
parallel to the partition. Style scarcely any.
Spec. Char. Stalk naked. Leaves lanceolate, rigid,
keeled, strongly fringed. Petals notched, twice as
long as the calyx.
Syn. Draba aizoides. Linn.. Mant. 91. Willden.
Sp. Pi. v. 3. 424. Jacq. FI. Austr. v. 2. 55.
t. 192. Curt. Mag. t. 170.
T h i s new and very interesting addition to our stock of native
plants was discovered by Dr. Wm. Turton, in March
1803, growing wild abundantly on walls and rocks about
Pennard -Castle, 8 miles west of Swansea in South Wales.
The Doctor infonns us that the castle is surrounded with
sands, almost inaccessible, and cannot have been inhabited for
some centuries, and that many of the aged plants grow far out
of all possible reach.
The roots are perennial, branched, bearing many round -
tüfts of crowded, linear-lanceolate, rigid, shining leaves, with
a strong rib, and more or less keeled; their margin strongly
fringed with white bristly hairs. Stalks solitary, terminal,
simple, naked, stiff, round and smooth, about an inch and
half high. Flowers numerous, corymbose, of a bright golden
yellow. Calyx-leaves broad, elliptical, concave. Petals twice
as long as the calyx, obovate, obtuse, with a slight notch.
Stamina not projecting. Antherae yellow. Pouch elliptical,
flat, acute, crowned with a longer style than is usual in this
genus. Seeds several in each cell.
As this Draba blossoms so early as March, continuing till
the end of April, and is of so brilliant and singular an appearance,
nothing can be moré desirable for decorating rock-work
and dry barren situations. It is accordingly not unfrequent in
gardens, where it forms large tufts without any care, and bears
our severest winters.