208 THE OLIVE LEAF. CHAP. 



blossom, without any form or comeliness, bravely 

 maintaining its existence in spite of the fierce buffet- 

 ings of the polar blasts. But the most interesting 

 species of all is the Edelweiss of the Swiss Alps, so 

 popular among the peasantry on account of its romantic 

 associations. It is distinguished for its beautiful whorl 

 of leaves springing star-like from beneath the closely- 

 set small yellowish flowers, and almost covered with 

 pure white down. This white down, which covers the 

 leaves of so many of the mountain composites, reaches 

 its highest development in a most extraordinary ever- 

 lasting called the Raoulia, which forms gigantic woolly 

 masses, spreading over the ground on the higher 

 mountains of New Zealand, and looking at a distance 

 so like a flock of sheep grazing that it has become 

 known to the settlers as the " vegetable sheep." But 

 besides the great variety of natural plants of the ever- 

 lasting character, numerous flowers of widely different 

 families, which do not possess this peculiarity, are 

 dried and preserved on the Continent with their natural 

 colours, along with a host of ornamental grasses. In 

 Germany this art is carried to great perfection, and 

 flowers and grasses thus treated are dyed in a great 

 variety of unnatural colours. Of late a great improve- 

 ment has been effected in the artificial colouring of 

 immortelles ; but there is still ample room for the 

 exercise of a more refined taste, many of the flowers 

 and grasses operated upon being too graceful and 

 delicate to bear heavy colouring, and becoming in 

 the process positively ugly. 



