THE RIVAL SEASONS 7 



{^Primula viscosa) nestling in every nook and 

 cranny. Over the plateaux, as far as eye can roam, 

 spreads a silvery haze of white and purple as the 

 Crocus and the Soldanella are freed from their 

 whiter covering ; on every hand, upon suimy bank 

 and grassy slope, blue is strewn in dazzling 

 profusion — that pure and matchless blue of the little 

 Vernal Gentian — sometimes to be happily inter- 

 mingled with the pale yellow of Liottard's Star of 

 Bethlehem {Gagea Liottardi), or with the brilliant 

 gold of Geum and Potentilla ; while the more 

 marshy ground, acre upon acre, hes rose-red and 

 brazen with its densely packed burden of Primula 

 fai'inosa, the Mealy, or Bird's-eye Primrose, and 

 with the Marsh Marigold. 



All of this, and much more, is missed by the 

 majority of visitors, who arrive perhaps in time to 

 see the last fast-fading blossoms of the Rhodo- 

 dendron. Of course, they do find vestiges of 

 spring's abundance, but only vestiges. From the 

 very nature of the Alps, spring lingers long upon 

 them, and often may be found nestling side by side 

 with summer. On the ground highe .' up than it is 

 necessary to go in the earlier months, on some 

 sequestered slope, or in some shaded hollow where 

 the snow has taken a tardy departure, or where. 



