GENERAL INTRODUCTION 225 



In mountain vegetation all the energy of the plant is 

 concentrated on the flower and, consequently, on the 

 reproductive organs. A rough knowledge of the external 

 conditions under which alpines exist is sufficient to show 

 that these plants must by nature be true perennials, and 

 tenacious of life. 



There is a wide difference between the climate and the 

 meteorological conditions which obtain in the high alps 

 and those to which we are accustomed in the lowlands. 

 With us a slow and insensible passage from a moist 

 winter, comparatively mild and brief, to a dry and burn- 

 ing summer encourages a slow and gradual development 

 of leaf and stem. Above the snow-line the winter is very 

 long, of nine months or it may be even of years (for there 

 are deep glens which a rainy summer never frees from 

 snow). Suddenly, in a moment, there succeeds a summer 

 brief but most favourable to vegetation. Light, heat and 

 moisture are lavished on the plant ; instantaneously, the 

 long sleep shaken off, it enters, without passing through 

 a spring, into the full bounty of the summer days. At the 

 breath of the fohn the snow vanishes ; in a few days, in 

 a few hours the dingy hue of the carpet changes and robes 

 itself in emerald. In the twinkling of an eye, at a magic 

 touch, the world awakes and lives and grows and blooms. 

 On every hand burst brilliant flowers, and busy around 

 them fly insect fertilisers, the powerful allies, without 

 whom many plants were doomed to barrenness. Some 

 ardent spirits, in their impatience to unfold, cannot await 

 the final melting; the stems, thanks to a dark colour, 

 push through the covering, and at times the flowers 

 bloom upon a bed of white. Most frequently may this 

 be noticed in Soldanellas, Crocuses and Petasites albus. 



This impatient desire to live is explained by the long, 

 slow preparation to which the plant submits during her 

 period of rest of relative rest under the covering of 



