122 ALPINE FLOWERS AND GARDENS 



the premature extinction of possibly important 

 links in the chain of evidence would be an irre- 

 deemable mischief. Nature-study — that study 

 which draws the sciences from their separate 

 existences to a common centre, and induces them 

 to act reciprocally in unravelling the secrets of 

 the universe — Nature-study, comprehensive and 

 systematic, is only in its youth, and the part which 

 plants (particularly those highly specialized dwellers 

 in the Alps) have to play in this study may be of 

 greater moment than we at present can conceive. 

 As with the Alpine vegetation of Rowenzori, in the 

 Congo, so with the flora qf the Swiss Alps : there 

 is amongst it an essentially primitive element, an 

 element that can give word of prehistoric circum- 

 stance, and possibly help to solve much that at 

 present remains unexplained. The flora of Switzer- 

 land, as M. Henry Correvon points out, may be 

 considered as the synthesis of that of Europe. Its 

 diversity, especially in the Canton of Valais, is 

 extraordinary. In this canton the flowers of every 

 European climate are represented : flowers of the 

 Mediterranean : flowers even of the Eastern steppes 

 and deserts : flowers such as the brilliant Adonis 

 vernalis, the equally brilliant Raminculns gra7nineus, 

 the yellow Wallflower, the large Periwinkle, the 



