A COLLECTING DAY ABOVE AROLLA 83 
the gardener’s joy of discovery. This has a quality which 
can belong to few other successful quests. For what can 
equal the delicious moments while one sits down in glory 
at the side of one’s discovery, and finds the moments far 
too holy and precious to be cut short by the premature 
introduction of the trowel upon the scene? The thing is 
there, for us to deal with at our reverent pleasure ; mean- 
while we must adore every detail of our find, lovingly 
touch the upturned petals, mark the growth, the health, 
the beauty, the whole delight of the plant, There is no 
hurry about precipitating the end. So there, on that 
flat rock overhanging the precipice, we loiter in worship 
of the yellow acizoén; then, when our satisfaction has 
been fully savoured, the trowel is introduced, cunningly 
and with piety, so as to remove only a little fraction of 
the clump—Anathema sempiternal on those who would 
rend away the whole, and leave the rock widowed of its 
chief pride! And this, again, is generously divided, that 
finder and companion may share alike. So we go happy 
onwards, secure in our knowledge that every rosette and 
rosettling of these Silver Saxifrages is safe to make a 
solid little plant by autumn. . 
Now the track, having passed the precipice, suddenly 
takes it into its head to mount. And mount it does, 
with fire and fury, in abrupt, violent zigzags, over a slope 
as steep as the side of a house, and surfaced with fine 
herbage, polished and slippery as glass. So quickly goes 
the climb towards the upper levels that gigantic Mont 
Collon, now close at hand to our right, seems to sink down 
beneath us as if through a trap-door. Up and up and 
up curls the track, still in the shadow of the hillside. The 
grass is starred with little plants of Stlene rupestris, and 
the dark sapphire globes of Phytewma pauciflorum. Here 
and there occurs the one-flowered form of Campanula 
barbata, which, so far I have never proved constant 
