everywhere. Even the purple foxglove is replaced by a 

 yellow variety. These facts should be borne in mind, lest 

 a too unfavourable comparison be made with our own 

 rich flora. 



But the flowers of the mountains are truly wonderful, 

 and it is their abundance as well as their bright colours 

 that make them so striking. At the same time, it must be 

 remembered that though so numerous neither the flowers 

 themselves nor the plants that bear them are really larger 

 than their lowland relatives. Indeed, in spite of their bright 

 conspicuous flowers, the plants that grow at the higher 

 altitudes are generally stunted and dwarfed. Most of the 

 peculiarities of Alpine plants, which we will now enumerate, 

 are to be accounted for by the conditions under which they 

 live. That this is really so is shown by the fact that 

 " within the bounds of what must unquestionably be 

 regarded as a single species, individuals change in character 

 as we ascend to higher altitudes, the leaves become more 

 hairy and more fleshy, and the flowers brighter and larger." 

 Even more direct evidence of this is to be obtained by 

 cultivating Alpine plants at lower levels and lowland plants 

 at high altitudes. Not a few of the plants of the mountains 

 when grown in our gardens at home change in character 

 very considerably. They tend to elongate so that their 

 leaves are separated by longer intervals of stem, and their 

 hairy characters very largely disappear. The Bearded 

 Bell-flower (Plate 26) may lose its bearded character, and 



xiv 



