WHERE DO 'ALPINES' BEGIN? 45 



doubting the strict legality of its title, just as there 

 are grounds for doubting the title of Myosotis 

 alpestris, though m the case of the Dock these 

 doubts are perhaps graver. There is some evidence 

 of the Dock having been planted expressly in 

 times past — mdeed, I have met with a kind of 

 tradition to this effect among the peasantry. It 

 is a useful plant to the montagnard (although its 

 dry flower-stem is abomination in his hay). He 

 employs it as a medicine for himself ; and not only 

 is it excellent fodder, in the green state, for the 

 pigs (and the cowherd or peasant frequently 

 brings a pig or two with him into the mountains 

 for summer), but its leaves are still often used to 

 wrap around butter to keep it fresh, and in times 

 past, before the introduction of special linen for 

 this purpose, the custom was general — upon much 

 the same principle as, in the Ardennes, the Nettle 

 is used for keeping fish fresh. 



Then, again, why should Ihissilago Far-fara, the 

 common Coltsfoot, be excluded from books on 

 Alpine flowers ? The Coltsfoot suffers from no 

 such disabilities as the Nettle. It is a lonely, 

 independent wanderer, making itself as much at 

 home in the moraine of a glacier as it does upon 

 any rough ground down in the plains. Is its 



