CORROUR 



conditions of exposure and soil which are fatal to 

 other trees. It revels in as much wind as it can 

 get, and is able to digest the humic acid in peat, 

 which is so unfavourable to the health of most trees. 

 All this part of the ground may be termed wild 

 garden, inasmuch as flowering exotics appear to be 

 growing spontaneously among the native heaths and 

 grasses. But similar effect could not be obtained 

 so easily at a lower altitude than Corrour, where 

 the native herbage has none of the rank exuberance 

 of lowland growth. It is subalpine in character, and 

 is composed of many plants exceedingly ornamental 

 in themselves, such as the various heaths and moor- 

 land berries, the field orchises, the dainty little 

 cornel (Cornus suecica) and the lovely and fragrant 

 wintergreen (Pyrola intermedia). With these are 

 blended in the most natural manner lowly thickets 

 of the Himalayan Andromeda (Cassiope) fastigiata, 

 with terminal racemes of snow-white or flesh-tinted 

 blossoms at the end of every branchlet of intense 

 green. Beside the granite stairs which climb the 

 steeper banks, the great Norwegian saxifrage (8. 

 cotyledon) tosses its great cloud of white blossom 

 with a luxuriance that I have never seen equalled 

 elsewhere. The branching sprays and delicate blos- 

 soms seem so fragile that one dreads the effect 

 upon them of the first rough breeze ; but the 

 stems are so tough and wiry that the display 

 is not marred even by a long Highland gale. 

 Globe-flowers, among which our native Trollius 



101 



