40 FLOWER-FIELDS OF ALPINE SWITZERLAND 



its blue European representatives none can eclipse 

 perennial vernas radiant star. 



The Vernal Gentian is no stranger to England, 

 though, as an indigenous plant, it is a stranger to 

 most Englishmen. It is still to be found on wet 

 limestone rocks in Northern England (Teesdale) 

 and also in the north-west of Ireland. Like 

 Gentiana nivalis of the small band of Alpine 

 annuals and tiniest of the blue-starred Gentians, 

 it lingers in the British Isles, a rare, pathetic 

 remnant of past salubrity of climate and condi- 

 tion ; and to its homes in England and Ireland, 

 rather than in Switzerland, we should perhaps go 

 to study how to grow it in our gardens more 

 successfully than we do at present. But it is to 

 the Alps that we must turn to find it revelling 

 wealthily in a setting for which it is pre-eminently 

 suited ; it is there that its 

 "... living flowers 

 Of loveliest blue, spread garlands at your feet." 



For, in the Alps, it is an abundant denizen of the 

 pastures in general : both the grazing pastures or 

 " Alps," and " the artificial modifications of the 

 pastures," as Mr. Newell Arber calls the meadows. 

 If we wanted to give this Gentian an English 

 name (and far be it from me to suggest that we 



