222 THE ALPINE FLORA 



tougher texture, and girds a leathery armour round the 

 tender tissues. In a word, the plants adapt themselves to 

 external conditions ; they furnish themselves with organs 

 which enable them to resist alike cold and wind and 

 excessive sun. In species, however, which thrive in shady 

 or cool places, the corresponding organs are usually soft 

 and delicate. 



Many of the downy species may be met on dry slopes 

 exposed to parching wind and powerful sun Edelweiss, 

 "The Star of the Glaciers", Senecios, Sempervivums, 

 Artemisias, etc, But one may also find many without 

 hairs the prostrate Azalea, Rhododendron ferrugineum, 

 Gentians, incrusted Saxifages and others with hard, 

 thick, glistening leaves, whose waxy coating checks any 

 over-rapid evaporation. A search, again, in cool and 

 shady places will disclose ferns, lycopods, mosses, 

 viscous primroses and soft-leaved saxifrage. 



The flowers, also, of our high alpines present a further 

 contrast, eloquent of the sun's increasing power. They 

 riot in the open with dazzling pigments and flaunt ample 

 petals against the light ; but in the shadows or under a 

 north ward- facing rock this is the rule dwells an insig- 

 nificant folk, etiolate and little-flowered. 



The social life, again, of plants is obvious to everyone, 

 the communities, that is, which members of the same 

 species form among themselves. Conifers gather into 

 forests ; grasses spread over meadows ; sedges people 

 barren plains ; the early spring Crocus and Narcissus rise 

 together uncounted in dense and serried ranks. And not 

 only so, but there are associations of species with spe- 

 cies unions to which the term "formations" has been 

 given colonies, that is, of diverse and often heterogen- 

 eous types, whose aggregate forms a harmony absolute 

 in itself and also one in harmony with soil and climate. 

 Modern botanists, particularly those of Germany, have 



