II 



A PLANT THAT MELTS ICE 



IF you have ever visited the Alps in early 

 spring, you will know well by sight the dainty 

 little nodding bells of the alpine soldanella 

 twin flowers on one stalk, like fairy tocsins, 

 which push their heads boldly through the ice 

 of the neve, and form a border of blue blossoms 

 on the edge of the snow-sheet. Most people, to 

 be sure, visit the Alps in August ; and they go too 

 late. Autumn is the time when heather purples 

 our bleak northern moors, but when the central 

 mountain chain of Europe, so glorious in April, 

 has become comparatively green and flowerless. 

 If you wish to see what nature can do in the way 

 of rock-gardens, however, you should go to Switzer- 

 land in early spring. It is then that blue gentians 

 spread vast girdles of blossom over the alpine pas- 

 tures ; then that the green slopes on the mountain 

 sides are yellowed by globe-flowers ; then that the 

 poet's narcissus stars with its white petals and 

 scents with its sweet perfume the rich meadows 

 on the spurs of the lesser ranges. Higher up, 

 sheets of creeping rock-plants, close clinging to 

 the uneven surface, fall in great cataracts of pink 



