SOME SPRING AND SUMMER ALPINES 93 



and those around tlie insignificant flower-head a 

 powdery white. 



We shall perhaps be forgiven, then, if we find it 

 a little strange that the Edelweiss should have so 

 inflamed the imagination of the world, and should 

 have become so obsessing an emblem of the Swiss 

 Alps. Its title seems scarcely to fit the facts ; 

 indeed, fiice to face with these, it appears not a 

 little monstrous. Maybe tht bridal tradition has 

 much to do with the flower's enormous repute. 

 Its halo is evidently of no recent date. In a 

 fifteenth-century portrait of a Swiss lady a bunch 

 of tills flower is being carried in the hand ; and in 

 some parts of Switzerland to-day a bouquet of 

 Edelweiss and Vanilla Orchid handed to a girl by 

 a man stands for a proposal of marriage. Maybe, 

 too— and this, no doubt, is a still more potent 

 factor— the deaths which the plant has occasioned 

 have helped to place it as high as it is upon the 

 scroll of fame : for the price we pay is so often the 

 reason and measure for our esteem. 



Now, that other 'everlasting,' the dainty httle 

 rose and white Antennaria dioica {Gnaphalium 

 dioicum, Luin.), is reaUy quite as fascinating as, 

 and assuredly prettier than, the Edelweiss. True, 

 it is commoner, far commoner, and it does not 



