38 ALPINE FLOWERS AND GARDENS 



around the former is far more Alpine in character 

 than that immediately around the latter. At 

 Champery one can find Alpines such as Gentiana 

 Kochiana and Lathyrus luteus within fifteen or 

 twenty minutes of the hotels ; whereas at Villars, 

 which is situated some 650 feet higher than 

 Champery, one must walk quite an hour and a half 

 farther up before one finds oneself in touch with 

 such Alpine conditions. 



And if it is impossible to draw a common hne of 

 altitude for Alpine plants, it is equally impossible 

 to draw a strict and just line of distinction among 

 these plants ; all that can be drawn is but a 

 relatively just line. Many usurpers are sharing 

 the Alpine throne, and sharing it, too, with superb 

 and easy effrontery. There is, of course, a dis- 

 tinctive flora with which one has no hesitation in 

 dealing, but this flora lives frequently cheek by 

 jowl with immigrants — immigrants making them- 

 selves perfectly at home, and adopting most 

 successfully the ways of all that is indigenous — 

 and these immigrants it is by no means always 

 easy to separate from their companions. 



Some plants seem to be very shy of travel, whilst 

 others prove themselves to be, as it were, veritable 

 ' globe-trotters.' Some, such as the common Prim- 



