Anchusa.—Pretty boraginaceous herbs, easily grown. A. italica, 3 to 4 ft., has blue star-like flowers. A. sempervirens, 1½ ft., rich blue, is well suited for rough borders.
Androsace.—Pretty dwarf rock plants, requiring rather careful management and a gritty soil. A. Vitaliana, yellow; A. Wulfeniana, purplish-crimson; A. villosa, white or pale rose; A. lactea, white with yellow eye; A. lanuginosa, delicate rose; and A. Chamaejasme, delicate rose, are some of the best.
Anemone.—The Japanese kinds, A. japonica, flowers white and purple, are very easily grown and are particularly fine in autumn. The scarlet A. fulgens, and A. coronaria, the poppy anemone, are useful for the front, or in nooks in the rockery; while the common hepatica (A. hepatica) with its bright blue flowers should also have a place.
Antennaria.—Composite plants, with everlasting flowers. A. margaritacea, 1½ to 2 ft., has white woolly stems and leaves, and white flower-heads.
Anthericum.—Charming border flowers. A. Liliastrum, St Bruno’s Lily, 1½ ft., bears pretty white sweet-scented flowers in May; A. Hookeri (Chrysobactron), 2 ft., with long racemes of bright golden yellow flowers, requires cool peaty soil.
Aquilegia.—The Columbine family, consisting of beautiful border flowers in great variety, ranging from 1 to 2 or 3 ft. in height. Besides the common purple A. vulgaris with its numerous varieties, double and single, there are of choice sorts A. alpina and A. pyrenaica, blue; A. glandulosa, A. jucunda, and A. coerulea, blue and white; A. leptoceras, blue and yellow; A. canadensis, A. Skinneri, and A. truncata (californica), scarlet and yellow; A. chrysantha, yellow; and A. fragrans, white or flesh-colour, very fragrant. Light rich garden soil.
Arabis.—Dwarf close-growing evergreen cruciferous plants, adapted for rockwork and the front part of the flower border, and of the easiest culture. A. albida forms a conspicuous mass of greyish leaves and white blossoms. There is also a charming double variety. A. lucida, which is also white-flowered, bears its bright green leaves in rosettes, and has a variety with prettily gold-margined leaves.
Arenaria.—Evergreen rock plants of easy culture. A. graminifolia, and A. laricifolia are tufted, with grassy foliage and white flowers, while A. balearica, a creeping rock plant, has tiny leaves and solitary white flowers.
Armeria.—The Thrift or Sea-Pink, of which the common form A. maritima is sometimes planted as an edging for garden walks; there are three varieties, the common pale pink, the deep rose, and the white, the last two being the most desirable. A. cephalotes, 1½ ft., is a larger plant, with tufts of linear lance-shaped leaves, and abundant globular heads of deep rose flowers, in June and July.
Asclepias.—A. tuberosa is a handsome fleshy-rooted plant, very impatient of being disturbed, and preferring good peat soil; it grows 1 to 1½ ft. high, and bears corymbs of deep yellow and orange flowers in September. A. incarnata, 2 to 4 ft., produces deep rose sweet-scented flowers towards the end of summer.