418 THE ALPINE PLANTS. 



from the Upper Alps, with Glimpses of their Homes." A 

 somewhat similar subject has been treated with much delicacy 

 of feeling and fervour of description by the Rev. Hugh Mac- 

 millan, in his " Holidays in High Lands." 



Among the Alpine plants sketched and described by Messrs 

 Walton and Bonney are the beautiful Lychnis, a close relative 

 of our corncockle and garden pink, and so called, says Gerard, 

 the quaint old botanist, because it is a "light-giving flower." 

 He also met with immense breadths of violet pansies, " that's 

 for thoughts," says Ophelia, covering the sloping pasture- 

 grounds of the Col d'Autune, and blending with rose and star 

 gentians, soldanellas, primulas, and anemones. The pink 

 blossoms and bare stem of the house leek is found " among the 

 blocks tumbled down from the ice-streams, and its sparkling 

 clusters seem to glow with a richer hue on the stony ruin 

 which has shattered the pine, and crushed the life even out of 

 the rhododendron." 



In the Glarus Alps the odorous cr imson tufts of the Kamm- 

 Ihime are discovered in a profusion which rejoices and 

 astonishes the traveller. The yellow-blossomed ragwort 

 spreads its stem over the rugged mountain- sides in every 

 Alpine district. But next in fame and beauty to the gentians, 

 which is, par excellence, the mountain-flower, must be placed 

 the edelwein, celebrated by Kobele and other famous poets, 

 and growing in almost every part of the Alps from Dauphine 

 to the Dolomites. 



For further details respecting a most interesting branch of 

 botany, we refer the reader to the two works already named, 



