78 ALPINES AND BOG-PLANTS 
under the lee of every stone its little china blue-bells 
dance lightly on their almost invisible stems. 
It was here, just before the trees began to thicken, that 
I found the dainty silver-pale variety that I call puszlla 
pallida. Pallid is a word with evil connotation, and I am 
sorry I chose so dishonouring an epithet for so exquisite 
a colour as the silvery French-grey that you get in this 
form of Campanula pusilla. 'Then the path passes wholly 
into dense shade, and skirts a mossy boulder as large as a 
young church. After that it emerges and moves through 
endless vicissitudes—up and down, in and out of meadow 
and woodland, peaceful and pleasant to pursue. Some- 
where in these parts is to be found, so M. Correvon tells 
me, the very rare, tall yellow Valerian Huguwenimia tana- 
cetifolia, but alas! I never saw it, though it frequents 
damp, mossy corners where such rank splendours as Lactuca 
alpina are to be met with. 
The great excitement at this part of the ascent is one’s 
first sight of the Arolla Pine. About all waning, dying 
species, such as Savifraga florulenta, Liliwn Kramer, 
Campanula Allioni, there hangs a flavour of almost 
Stuart romance; but Pinus Cembra is the protagonist of 
nature’s tragedy in the Alps. Only in its young stages 
could the tree possibly be mistaken for anything else. 
As it grows older it develops a dense, club-like shape, 
which enables you easily to distinguish its dark, stout 
columns from several miles away, amid several thousands 
of its rival species. Pinus Cembra is probably a very 
ancient species. It is certainly very slow-growing, and, 
I believe, not in the front rank for fertility. In any case, 
it is being crowded out of the world by younger species. 
In the Valais it lingers, in Tyrol, and in Siberia. You 
first sight it when half-way up the path from Evolena to 
Arolla, in the Arolla valley, and after that it goes with 
you all the way to the glaciers at the foot of the Mont 
