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Botanical Description

Junellia silvestri). An extremely hard glabrous mat-forming shrublet forming a solid even surface of rigid foliage contouring the ground, under 1cm high and spreading up to 50cm across. Leaves sessile, in tiny tight rosettes, thick, entire, narrowly ovate, 3-3.5 by 1.5-2mm, slightly concave and rounded at the tips. Flowers sessile, solitary or rarely in pairs with the calyx 4mm long and the corolla 7-8 mm in length and diameter, its rounded lobes white or blush-pink ageing to rose, but always with a darker tube, spring. Argentina and Chile, in southern Patagonia, typically on windswept stony clifftop barrens or hillsides of dry, open steppe communities at 100-500m. Perhaps the finest of all the species from an alpine gardening standpoint. If it could be coaxed into performing as in the wild, its foliage almost hidden beneath shapely fragrant blossoms and retain its character as well, it could clearly reap the highest rewards on the showbenches.

V. spissa Sandw. see V. caespitosa