122 ALPINE FLOWERS [PART I. 



thousands of acres of the higher ground. The contrast between 

 the valley flushed with life and the great uplands of snow was 

 very beautiful. 



We had several miles to descend through the snow before a 

 trace of vegetation could be seen, when fairy specimens of the 

 nearly universal Primula viscosa began to show their rosy 

 flowers here and there on ledges, where they were pressed 

 down by the snow ; and by clearing little spaces with the 

 alpenstock, we found the ground nearly covered with them. 

 Then the glacial Buttercup began to make its appearance in 

 abundance. Another minute gem was here in quantity the 

 silvery Androsace imbricata, growing on the hollowed flanks of 

 rocks the tufts, not more than half an inch high, sending 

 roots far into the narrow chinks. These having a downward 

 direction, the water could reach the roots from above. One 

 plant was gathered in the hollow recess of a cliff, with at least 

 one hundred little rosettes and flowers, forming a tuft 3 

 inches in diameter, all nourished by one little stem as thick 

 as a small rush, and which was bare for a distance of 2 or 

 3 inches from the margin of the chink from which it issued. 

 The tuft, bloom, and minute silvery leaves suspended by this 

 were, in all probability, as old as any of the great larches in the 

 valley below. 



The Androsaces, with very few exceptions, have not 

 until quite recently often been successfully cultivated. Their 

 silvery rosettes are more delicately chiselled than the prettiest 

 encrusted Saxifrage ; their flowers have the purity of the 

 Snowdrop, and occasionally the blushes of the alpine Primroses. 

 They are the smallest of beautiful flowering plants, and they 

 grow on the very highest spots on the Alps where vegetation 

 exists, carpeting the earth with loveliness wherever the sun 

 has sufficient power to lay bare for a few weeks in summer a 

 square yard of wet rock-dust. 



The icicle-fringed cliffs, on the concave sunny faces of which 

 the only traces of vegetation seen about here were found, and 

 the rocky precipices seen from the spot, make all this diminutive 

 flower-life the more interesting. 



