SPRING IN THE ALPS 21 



garden Auriculas, is seemingly one of the few 

 plants of which the Swiss mountain peasants take 

 much notice, besides, of course, such herbs and 

 flowers as they gather for medicinal purposes. 

 Upon the roof of many a cowshed and chalet may 

 be seen clumps of this favoured one, growing in 

 some old soap-box or biscuit-tin — generally of 

 English extraction. 



Now, turning abruptly to the left, and descending 

 into the gully, we find in the moist, sandy debris 

 forming its bed quantities of the white Alpine 

 Cress {Hutsckinsia alpiiia), bloommg among rich 

 green clumps, scarcely yet in flower, of the golden 

 Stonecrop Saxifrage {Saxifinga aizoides) ; and all 

 along the gulley's sunny side are widespread, vivid 

 masses of the rosy-red Rock Soap wort {Saponaria 

 oeymoides). In profusion everywhere, but doing 

 best on the damp and shady side, is Micheli's Daisy, 

 the long-stalked BeUidiastrum Miclwlii. The blue- 

 grey Glohularia cordifoUa is also here, carpeting 

 the dried ground above ; while, tucked in and about 

 the base of the boulders oyqv which we are 

 scrambling, we notice, though not as yet in bloom, 

 quantities of the yellow-green plants of the lovel}' 

 Golden Marguerite {Aronicum scorpioides). Here, 

 too, nestling plentifully with the Parsley Fern, is 



