STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 269 



Alps. At a distance, one would say that such a spot marked some 

 terrible scene of blood, but as you come nearer the hues are so tender 

 and delicate, as they fade from deep red to rose, and so die in the 

 pure, colorless snow around, that the first impression is completely 

 dispelled. This red snow is an organic growth, a plant springing up 

 in such abundance that it colors extensive surfaces just as the micro- 

 scopic plants dye our pools with green in the spring. Ifc is an Alga 

 (Protocoitis miralis) well known in the Arctics, where it forms wide 

 fields in the summer." 



This same high authority who seems to find beauty and fitness 

 everywhere, says: "There are valleys in the Alps far above six thou- 

 sand feet which have no glaciers, and where perpetual snow is seen 

 only on the northern sides. These contrasts in temperature lead to 

 the most wonderful contrasts in the aspect of the soil; summer and 

 winter lie side by side, and bright flowers look out from the edge of 

 snows that never melt. Where the warm winds prevail there may be 

 sheltered spots at the height of ten or eleven thousand feet, isolated 

 nooks ppening southward where the most exquisite flowers bloom in 

 the midst of perpetual snow and ice; and occasionally I have seen a 

 bright little flower with a cap of snow over it, that seemed to be its 

 shelter. The flowers give indeed a peculiar charm to these high Al- 

 pine regions. Occurring often in beds of the same kind, forming 

 green, blue, or yellow patches, they seem nestled close together in shel- 

 tered spots, or even in fissures and chasms of the rock, where they 

 gather in dense quantities Even in the sternest scenery of the Alps 

 some sign of vegetation lingers, and I remember to have found a tuft 

 of lichens growing on the only rock which pierced through the ice 

 on the summit of the Jung-frau. It was a species then unknown to 

 botanists, since described under the name of Umbelicarus Higinis." 



And now it would be very delightful if those who have listened pa- 

 tiently to this dissertation on Arctic flora, could step from this hall 

 into one or other of the beautiful greenhouses of which our city has 

 a right to feel proud, and as their eyes feasted on the tropical beauty 

 to be found there, they might be led to think that there are, all over 

 the world, not excluding our own highly favored city, many who are 

 sick and wretched, and, wicked, it may be, whose lives have been 

 very dreary and barren, around whom no sweet tender influences have 

 been thrown, and who have little or no hope for this world or an- 

 other. And with that thought might come the impulse, to do some, 

 thing to brighten and make better these sad lives. From such an im- 

 pulse as this has grown the Flower Mission, and the good it has ac- 



