ROCK
JASMINE
Family PRIMULACEAE
Androsace species
Biennial/Annual
Natives of Europe, North America and Asia, the
Androsaces are delightful plants for rock gardens.
Androsace lictiflora (syn. Androsace coronopiflora), a biennial
from Siberia, reaches six inches, sometimes taller,
with narrow lance-shaped leaves, up to two inches
long, formed in a rosette; the flowers are bluish-white,
about half an inch across, and borne in clusters.
Androsace septnetrionalis is rather taller; the flowers
are white or pink, about a quarter of an inch
across, and borne in umbels; (a flat-topped cluster
of flowers having their footstalks of nearly equal
length and radiating outwards), its form var.
subumbellata is of dwarfer habit. Androsace maxima is
very dwarf, rarely more than four inches, with
white or pink flowers. Androsace armeniaca is biennial,
about two inches high, with white flowers in clusters.
Although so admirable for the rock garden, the
taller species are useful front-of-the-border
annuals. The seed may be sown in sandy peat in
a cold frame or where the plants are to flower,
taking care to thin the seedlings.
Propagation is from seed, or from cuttings of
biennial kinds inserted in pots of sandy soil
in the cold frame in autumn.
The flowering season is in May and June.
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