INTRODUCTORY. IS 



flowers on the mountains, great caution should be observed ; 

 for there is often as much danger in getting them as in 

 ascending the highest peaks of the Alps. They sometimes 

 seem to grow so near the path that the attempt to get them 

 is almost irresistible ; but this little way may prove to end 

 in awkward dangerous places, while those reaching after 

 them have none of the precautions for safety which the 

 rope, the guide, or the company of two or three, give to the 

 mountaineer. It does not need an avalanche or a fall of a 

 thousand feet to produce a fatal accident. 



It will be very natural, under the influence of such books 

 as Mr. Robinson's charming Alpine Flowers for English 

 Gardens — a book which does not confine itself to Swiss- 

 Alpine — to attempt to transplant some of the Swiss plants. 

 The attempt may so far succeed that many may reach 

 England alive, and some may live on for years ; it will, 

 however, probably be the exception for the most striking 

 and characteristic of them, thus transplanted, to do well 

 here long. Those from the higher mountains seem to need 

 the intensity of their own climate, in its snow, cold, heat 

 and moisture. 



Many of the Stonecrops, Houseleeks, and Saxifrages are 

 good travellers. Only let us put in a word against reckless 

 grubbing-up, especially of the rarer species ; for the flowers 

 of Switzerland, like the coal-fields of England, are not inex- 

 haustible. It is possible that success might be attained by 



