BUTTERFLIES AND FLOWERS OF NORWAY. 195 



But, en revanche, in cloudy intervals — not always the worst 

 for these species by the way — or when exhausted nature clamours 

 for repose, what gems of plant-life greet the eye ! Linnaa borealis, 

 with its delicate little nodding white bell lined with rose-pink, 

 two on each slender peduncle, is everywhere present, tenderly 

 reminiscent of the great Swede whose favourite it was. The 

 white star of Trientalis europcea rises modestly from the bed of 

 Sphagnum that holds its tender rootlets in loving embrace ; and 

 the three Vacciniums — occycoccus, Vitis idcea and uliginosum — are 

 almost universally abundant ; as is also, in the more open parts 

 of the bog, Rubus chamcemorus, the cloudberry. 



Our road to the Disenaaen bog lay along the railway— three 

 miles of it — and a fine of two krone for trespass ; but the officials 

 were most polite, and the rule appeared to be relaxed in our 

 favour. On each side of the single line of rails were broad, 

 sloping banks, densely diapered with many kinds of greenery. 

 Here were Equiseium sylvaticum, and two others, in great abun- 

 dance — the smallest of them looking, at a little distance, like a 

 long-piled carpet on the uppermost edge of the bank, and creep- 

 ing even under the rails and in between the sleepers. Here also 

 were Pyrola media, minor and unifiora — Moneses grand flora of 

 the ' London Catalogue.' When now, for the first time, I saw this 

 lovely thing alive the barren poverty of my " Hortus Siccus " 

 struck home to me like a blight. " Good-bye to the Herbarium ! " 

 I said ; but things look different when you get home, and that 

 long row of portfolios so neatly labelled is still unburnt. 

 Another delicate little plant, Smilacina bifolia (Maianthemum 

 convallaria), the May lily, found only in one spot near Scar- 

 borough with us, was common enough in places, and quite 

 abundant on the roadsides near Christiania. Large white 

 patches of Galium boreale occurred here and there, and the 

 beautiful white arum-like heads of Calla palustris lit up the 

 dark quagmires of the bog that skirted the rail with an almost 

 uncanny lustre. But dazzling beyond everything else were 

 broad clusters of the rich crimson-purple Lychnis viscaria. 

 They were our landmarks along the line. At this one you 

 entered the bog for E. embla, just beyond that one was a spring of 

 the purest and coldest water, and when the eye once rested upon 

 one of these patches all else was merged in grey. A dangerous 

 competitor would be Epilobium angustifolium, if they were both 

 out together — not so aggressive to the eye, but more graceful, 

 and more tender in its rose-bay tints, and it made a broad fringe 

 all along the line. 



The butterflies that occurred most commonly on these banks 

 were P. machaon, A. cratcegi, P. brassicce, E. cardamines, L. sinapis, 

 C. palceno, T. rubi, P. hypothoe, L. agon, semiargus and cyllarus, 

 an occasional battered V. antiopa, M. athalia, A. selene and 

 euphrosyne (both extremely common), P. hiera, C. pamphilus and 



