THE ABUSE AND PROTECTION OF ALPINES 131 



ii) this regard. More often than not the flowers are 

 far better cared for by the tourist who is utterly- 

 indifferent to their charms : for he leaves them 

 alone ! Oh that all flowers had the traditional gift 

 of Atropa Maiulragora (the Mandrake) — to shriek 

 out aloud when pulled up by the roots I The cry 

 might affect to good purpose the 'disorderly' 

 flower-lover ! Seemingly, like the proverbial boy 

 Avho must fling a murderous stone at any beautiful 

 bird, the tourist, as soon as he sees a lovely flower — 

 some particularly well-grown specimen or some 

 rare white form — is apt to feel that it must be 

 uprooted and taken home. The same idle impulse 

 — the impulse to possess, and the impulse to kill in 

 order to possess — seizes boy and tourist alike, and 

 usually with a like result : the bird is soon thrown 

 aside to moulder, whilst the plant is left to rot 

 in water or to lie waterless in the sun on the 

 window-sill of some hotel bedroom. The reckless 

 and destructive element in this impulse to possess 

 ' root and branch ' was strikingly illustrated in the 

 early summer of 1908. During a ten-days absence 

 of the gardener, a number of lovely Alpines were 

 uprooted from the garden on the summit of the 

 llochers de Naye, above Montreux, many of the 

 plants being left lying scattered here and there. 



