28 ALPINES AND BOG-PLANTS 
into the eye of day, comparatively enormous little cups, 
waxy, coral-pink, delightful. You will find the Alpine 
Azalea all over the higher ranges of Scotland, and every- 
where in the upper Alps. It makes a great part in that 
fine, close lawn which you reach below the lowest lip of 
the moraines ; and its frail, hard woody branches go trail- 
ing far and wide, making warp and woof for the Andro- 
saces carnea, vitaliana and Chamaejasme, for the alpine 
clovers, Oxytropids and Phacas, for the gentians verna, 
brachyphylla and nivalis. Unfortunately it is a very diffi- 
cult plant to collect, and not by any means an easy plant to 
grow. It is strange that a native should be perverse, but 
Azalea procumbens requires a good deal of care—perfect 
roots to start with (a sufficiently hard proviso), then a 
cool, open space, in light, cool peaty soil, rich with 
vegetable humus. At present, I believe, I have only one 
thriving plant, and that but small. Nor is it easy to get 
more. This year, however, I am trying the experiment 
of bringing down a quantity of the fine powdered black 
humus, decay of decay of decay from the very beginning 
of things, which is to be collected from peat-hags high on 
the saddle of Ingleborough. Of the chemical properties 
of this pulverised stuff I leave wiser heads than mine to 
speak ; in a way the nutritive qualities of this extinct 
rottenness must have changed or failed. And yet it plays 
an incalculably great part in the life of the higher Alpine 
vegetation, contributing some mysterious gift essential to 
the well-being of such things as the arctic Andromedas, 
and the mountain Azalea. Possibly, though not in itself 
food, it provides some substitute for food—of which the 
truly Alpine plants are very impatient in any excessive or 
obvious degree—perhaps, that is, the humus acts as a sub- 
tilised nutrition inoffensive to the dainty tastes of these 
mountaineers, and yet satisfactory to their needs. 
Of the other Azaleas my song is still sorrow. ‘There 
