PART L] NOTES OF A JOURNEY IN THE ALPS 133 



discerned growing from a chink on a low mass of rock. By 

 carefully breaking away portions of this, we succeeded in 

 getting the plant, roots and all, out intact, and by very 

 diligent searching, found a few more specimens of it. It 

 was not yet in flower, but pushing up the stem preparatory 

 to it. Then a long trudge down mountain, valley, and hilly 

 road brought us home to our quarters at half -past nine, after 

 a day of nearly twenty hours' walking. 



With a few words on the vegetation of some parts of the 

 Simplon great range, these notes will end. The chief feature 

 of the smaller vegetation alongside the great Simplon Koad 

 is the foxbrush-like flowering pyramids of the great Saxifraga, 

 Cotyledon, and on the highest parts of the road, wherever the 

 ground near it softens into anything like turf, the fine blue 

 of the vernal Gentian sparkles amongst yellow Potentillas 

 and Ranunculi. It is pleasant to meet with it in flower weeks 

 after one has left it in full flower in England in April, and 

 seen it bear seed on mountains about 5000 feet high. About 

 the end of June it was in fresh and perfect condition here, 

 and likely to remain so for some time to come. Observe the 

 capabilities of the plant, and the changes that it endures with- 

 out losing health in any case. In perfect health in England, 

 without a covering of snow through the winter, and flowering 

 strongly in early spring, it flowers here in the month of June, 

 and higher up in July. 



Let us ascend one of the highest mountains of the range a 

 little way, climb upwards for two hours, passing the limits of 

 the Pines, till we get at the base of the bed of an enormous 

 glacier, a vast high field of snow apparently, which fills the 

 upper portion of a wide gap between two mountains. The 

 wide expanse of ground which we are traversing is simply a 

 mighty bed of shattered rock, which at a remote day was 

 carried down by this colossal, ever-levelling machine, and it 

 is now covered with a scanty vegetation of alpine Rhododendron 

 and high mountain plants. 



Everywhere, and very pretty, is the mountain form of the 

 Wood Forget-me-not, but no trace of the true Myosolis alpestris. 



