SOME WILD FLOWERS FROM SWISS MEADOWS AND 



MOUNTAINS 



By Casey A. Wood 



[With 6 plates] 



The north slopes of the Lake of Lucerne form an important area 

 of the Four Forest Cantons. There nature seems to have arranged 

 them especially for an exuberant growth of Alpine and sub-Alpine 

 wild flowers. This charming locality with its southern exposure is 

 protected from cold winds by the surrounding hills, while rainfall 

 and sunshine are justly proportioned to stimulate the growth of 

 foliage and bloom from the meadow flowers on the lake margins to 

 the pines and snow plants of the Rigi-Kulm, 6,000 feet above it. 



After a winter in Rome we arrived at Vitznau, 10 miles from 

 Lucerne, at the end of April to witness the unfolding of a second 

 semitropical spring. The Park Hotel, surrounded by what is virtu- 

 ally a small botanical garden of 5 acres, furnished the trees and 

 plants — oleanders, magnolias, wisterias, roses, forsythias, weigelias, 

 hydrangeas, judas trees, spiraeas, azaleas, flowering chestnuts, etc. — 

 that had passed their bloom when we left the Eternal City, but once 

 more opened in all their belated charm and gloiy to give us a hos- 

 pitable Swiss greeting. 



It was not, however, to the official gardener and his assistants that 

 we turned for botanical information, but to the lovely hills and 

 high mountains that walled us in on the north and spread before 

 us in seductive vistas — snow-capped some of them, verdure-clad all 

 of them — to the far south. We organized walking expeditions, 

 steamer excursions, and motor trips to explore this naturalist's par- 

 adise. Even the feeblest climber of our party finally did a 6-mile 

 hike over the hills and far away to a Swiss hamlet near the snows, 

 passing through indescribably beautiful Alpine meadows and green 

 pastures carpeted with wild flowers. On these walking tours (and 

 Baedecker was undoubtedly right when he said that the only way 

 really to see a coimtry is to tramp through it) we had ample op- 

 portunity to admire the cleanly, effective, and artistic fashion in 

 which the Swiss people have regulated, adapted, and improved even 



503 



