THE RHODODENDRON 107 



teeth set, prepared to front the rudest buffets 

 of Alpine circumstance without a prayer for pity, 

 and to come up smihng in spite of all. Although, 

 of course, hirsutum has its own good way of over- 

 coming severe conditions, it has a greater delicacy 

 of bearing and does not impress one as being 

 possessed of its cousin's rugged nature. 



Eugene Rambert, the Swiss poet-alpinist, speaks 

 of the Rhododendron as being " la plante alpine j^ar 

 excellence,'' and in doing so he probably uses the 

 word "Alpine" in the same sense in which we 

 ourselves are here using it, or else perhaps he 

 refers to the plant as, for the most part, it is 

 resident in Switzerland. For on the Italian face 

 of the Alps the Rhododendron descends, as around 

 Lugano, to the plains. Mr. Stuart Thompson, 

 who has made a special study of altitude in con- 

 nection with the mountain flora, says in his 

 *' Alpine Plants of Europe " that R. ferrugineum 

 " ascends to 8,800 feet in Valais, to at least 

 8,200 feet in the Maritime Alps, and descends 

 into the plain in Tessin by Lago Maggiore (with 

 R. liirsutuvi), and by Lake ^Vallenstadt, and it is 

 occasionally found as a glacier relic in turbaries in 

 the woods of the Swiss plateau." 



Mr. Thompson, by mentioning the fact of the 



