An Ascent of Mont Ventoux 



no longer in flower. Would you do some 

 really fruitful herborizing? Be there in the 

 first fortnight of July; above all, be ahead of 

 the grazing herds: where the Sheep has 

 browsed you will gather none but wretched 

 leavings. While still spared by the hungry 

 flocks, the top of the Ventoux in July is a 

 literal bed of flowers; its loose stony surface 

 is studded with them. My memory recalls, 

 all streaming with the morning dew, those 

 elegant tufts of Androsace villosa, with its 

 pink-centred white blooms; the Mont-Cenis 

 violet, spreading its great blue blossoms over 

 the chips of limestone; the spikenard 

 valerian, which blends the sweet perfume of 

 its flowers with the offensive odour of its 

 roots; the wedge-leaved globularia, forming 

 close carpets of bright green dotted with blue 

 capitula; the Alpine forget-me-not, whose 

 blue rivals that of the skies; the Candolla 

 candytuft, whose tiny stalk bears a dense 

 head of little white flowers and goes winding 

 among the loose stones; the opposite-leaved 

 saxifrage and the musky saxifrage, both of 

 them packed into little dark cushions, 

 studded in the first case with purple flowers 

 and in the second with white flowers washed 

 with yellow. When the sun's rays are hot- 

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