THE SAXIFRAGES 205 



a form requiring to be searched for ; it runs along 

 the fenceless paths which wind round the moun- 

 tains, between the bracken and the heather, with 

 all the freedom and at-horneness of one of our 

 commonest plants. A hillman would no more 

 think of turning to look at it, than we at so many 

 daisies and buttercups. 



And yet, if it be the first time in those parts, 

 one needs to waken up, so strangely unlike are 

 they to anything he is accustomed to. Even now, 

 often as I have been with them, I find myself 

 pausing in wonder. There is that about alpines 

 which makes them wild flowers indeed, and not 

 simply by courtesy. They are rare, in the most 

 delicate sense of that word. 



Such experiences as these bring out the differences 

 between mountain and lowland. The Highlands are 

 a new world of fresh forms, and owe their attrac- 

 tive as well as recuperating influence to the fact. 

 On the Glen Isla hills this yellow may be gathered 

 by the cart load. 



The range of the white starry saxifrage comes 

 not quite so far down, though it is found on the 

 lower slopes of the hills. In many places it seems 

 to be the more abundant of the two. * One who 

 has not seen it growing say, in some rift of the 



