92 ALPINE FLOWERS AND GARDENS 



Japan, New Zealand, China, and on the Himalayas ; 

 and it is a bridal flower in Austria, Hungary, and 

 the Tyrol. In Switzerland itself it is common, 

 especially on limestone formation ; there are places 

 where it is abundant on the Alpine pastures, and is 

 mown down by the scythe, or eaten with avidity by 

 the cows. But its range of altitude is not a wide 

 one. Mr. H. Stuart Thompson, who has made 

 a special study of the altitudinal limits of Alpine 

 plants, gives the limit for Edelweiss in the Western 

 Alps as 8,200 feet ; and others give its range in the 

 Alps generally as from about 5,700 feet to some 

 8,700 feet. On this score, then, there are flowers 

 of more Alpine habit than this plant of swollen 

 reputation — flowers such as the exquisitely lovely 

 little blue Eritrichium nanum^ the Mousse dazur. 

 And on the score of beauty, the ' blossom ' of the 

 Edelweiss is more curious than beautiful. * That 

 which looks,' says Dr. C. Schroter, ' like a large 

 flower at the end of the stalk is in reality a very 

 composite structure. It consists of numerous 

 many-flowered heads, whose white, woolly, radially- 

 arranged bracts imitate a flower.' This peculiarity 

 can be better seen in a Japanese relative, Leonto- 

 podium Japonicum^ a species with the lower leaves 

 green, resembhng the leaves of a shrubby Veronica, 



