SWISS FLOWERS. 77 



banks of our streams. This is found only in Swiss gardens, 

 or when escaped from them. Nor have the Swiss any of our 

 cross-leaved or common Heath ; they have Erica carnea 

 and plenty of Ling, but none of the Heather which gives 

 such a beautiful tinge of purple to the Scotch mountains, 

 and to lower hills in many parts of England. In point of 

 colour, this want is supplied by the brilliant leaves of the 

 Whortleberry, which give a red autumnal glow to the 

 mountains when the pink Rhododendron is over and there 

 are not even any straggling beauties left to remind the late 

 traveller of what was once there. It is among the bushy 

 thickets of these mountains that A. Uva-ursi (Fig. 58) is 

 met with, forming a low and pretty shrub about the height 

 of the Whortleberry, but, unlike that, having round 

 perennial leafy, instead of wiry angular, stems, which be- 

 come bare in winter. The leaves resemble those of Box in 

 shape; they are leathery, downy when young, afterwards 

 quite smooth. The flower is very much like the Arbutus of 

 our shrubberies, with ten stamens, and a dark anther with 

 five little turned-back teeth, on each blossom. The blossoms 

 form a kind of loose bunch at the top of the branch ; they 

 are cream-coloured, Avith a pink tinge. The berry is large, 

 very round, and of a beautiful red colour. Common 

 on the rocky low mountains. A curious plant, near to the 

 family of the Arbutus and Pyrola, Monotropa hypopitys, may 

 be found among the dead leaves of the mountain woods. It 



