490 AUTUMNAL COLOURING. 



in glow and brilliancy to the most vivid colours of flowers. The deciduous 

 whortleberries and a species of bearberry are most conspicuous. While the 

 leaves of the Bilberry (Vaccinium uliginosum) assume a violet colour, the red 

 Whortleberries (F. vitis idcea) clothe themselves in deep red, and the Bearberry 

 (Ardostaphylos alpina) in vivid scarlet. The autumnal leaves of these plants 

 exhibit the most beautiful red observed in any autumnal foliage; it is much 

 more fiery than in the North American vines and the sumach trees; and when the 

 foliage of this Bearberry is illuminated by oblique sunbeams on a mountain slope, 

 the observer below might fancy he saw flames of strontium forking up out of the 

 ground. The leaves of many herbaceous plants also, such as Alpine geraniums and 

 Alpine hawkweeds, become coloured with anthocyanin at the margins, and along 

 the veins, or even over the whole surface, before withering; and seen from a 

 distance, look like red, violet, and variegated flowers. The Alpine willows, how- 

 ever, especially the carpeting Salix retusa, and the low bush of Salix hastata and 

 S. arhuscula, together with the red-fruited Sorbus Chamoe-mespiliis, take a golden 

 yellow. The latter chiefly border the water-courses, and on looking down from 

 above on the gullies and ravines through which the water pursues its tortuous 

 way, interrupted by small cascades, these bushes are recognized as a twisted, golden 

 fretwork, thrown up against the darker background. Between the low under- 

 growth of whortleberries and bilberries, but principally between the low-lying 

 sprays of Alpine bearberries, spring up everywhere white and grey lichens, 

 especially the Reindeer-moss and the Iceland-moss, and some rocky ridges and 

 slopes are so exclusively covered with these structures that they look from a 

 distance like white patches and stripes on red, violet, and yellow grounds. The 

 display of colours in Alpine regions is materially heightened by the fact that broad 

 patches of dark tints are not wanting. The number of evergreen plants is com- 

 paratively large, and some of those species which appear in clumps retain their 

 green foliage under the long-continued winter coat of snow until the vegetative 

 period of the next year. The groups of mountain pines (Pinus humilis, Mughus, 

 and Pumilio), the rhododendron bushes (Rhododendron hirsutum and ferru- 

 gineum), the tufts of Crowberry {Empetrum nigrum), and the glistening carpet 

 of the evergreen Bearberry (Ardostaphylos Uva-Ursi), with their dark -green 

 tints, bring a certain calm into the gay confusion. The carpets of Azalea pro- 

 cumbens, which in the autumn becomes brownish-green in colour, in consequence of 

 the collection of the chlorophyll-corpuscles of the green leaf -cells into balls, also 

 moderate the glare of the picture in a harmonious manner. 



The charming spectacle of the colouring of deciduous foliage in Alpine regions 

 as a rule only lasts for about a fortnight. If the slopes still remain free from snow 

 for a short time, all the red, violet, and yellow leaves become detached from the 

 twigs and branches. Whatever useful materials were still present in the foliage 

 have emigrated during this time to the stem-structures, where they are to pass the 

 winter; and the fallen leaves become brown and blackened. Soon the wintry pall 

 of snow is spread upon the mountains; and the ridges, slopes, and hollows, from 



