40 ALPINE FLOWERS AND GARDENS 



Alpine marsh plants) in England often no easy 

 matter ; unless they can be protected from what to 

 them is Winter's superfluity of dampness, the result 

 must lean largely towards failure. And this it is, 

 no doubt, that militates greatly against them 

 leaving their Alpine home of their own accord. 

 But vice ve7'sa the difficulty does not appear to be 

 so pronounced, and lowland plants have, seemingly, 

 a far greater facility for adapting themselves to 

 altered conditions. If Alpine circumstance may 

 be taken as one of comparative refinement, then it 

 would appear that it is more feasible, healthy, and 

 proper to climb up to that sphere and to adopt its 

 conditions than it is to quit it and descend to a 

 lower plane ; which makes very good philosophy 

 for man as well as for plants. 



But this state of things causes it to be often no 

 easy matter to frame any hard and fast rule for the 

 distinguishing of Alpines as a class. How be strict 

 and dogmatic in this regard with, for instance, the 

 Mealy Primula, the Sticky Primula, the Daffodil, 

 the Hepatica, the Dog's-tooth Violet, or the Vernal 

 Crocus ? They are flowers of the Swiss plain 

 and Alp alike. The Mealy Primula is as profuse 

 about Villeneuve and Vouvry, at the entrance to 

 the Rhone Valley, as it is on the Col des Mosses 



