7 JUNE 1935, Page 16

Tricolor Flax The struggle to instil new colours into old

flowers has been so successful (witness the nemesia) that it has probably ceased to be true, as the old botanists claimed, that no genus produces all these primary colours. The writer of a charming "Alpine Diary" in the official organ of the Alpine Garden Society claims that the linums now provide a straight red, yellow and blue. We all know the perennial blue (which produces linen) and the annual red. This alpinist claims linum fitrcunt and arboreunt as true yellows. Incidentally, how much better (as we should expect) the alpine garden stood the frost than any other section.