200 SUB-ALPINE PLANTS 



terminal, spicate, usually unilateral racemes. Petals tubular- 

 urceolate. Stamens and styles projecting from the corolla. Calyx 

 and corolla rose-coloured, rarely white, anthers purple-black. 



Rocks, margins of woods, and in the woods themselves, up to 

 8500 feet, often covering large tracts ; local, and almost always on 

 limestone. April, May. 



Distribution. Carpathians, Eastern, Central, and Western Alps, 

 Central and Southern Europe. 



It is interesting to note that, according to Keller and Schinz, 

 no fewer than 9 of the 13 Swiss plants belonging to Ericaceae have 

 been seen in that country up to 2400 metres (7870 feet), and 3 

 reach 3000 m. They do not place Pyrola in this family, as we have 

 done in accordance with old tradition. 



PYROLA L. 



Very beautiful white or greenish white flowers, in racemes or 

 rarely solitary, nodding. Corolla globose or spreading, of 5 free or 

 slightly connate petals. Sepals 5. Stamens 10. Style prominent. 

 Ovary 5-celled. Leaves glabrous. 



A small genus confined to the northern hemisphere of the Old and 

 New World. . 



Pyrola uniftora L. (Moneses grandiflora Salisb.). (Plate XIII.) 



Stem 2-4 inches high, erect, i-flowered, slender, leafless except 

 at the base, and springing from a single slender root-fibre, which 

 absorbs water and nutriment from the moss and decaying pine- 

 needles upon which it grows. Leaves ovate, roundish, suddenly 

 narrowed into a foot-stalk, finely serrate, usually in loose rosettes. 

 Corolla shallow, white, nodding. Stigma large, 5-lobed. Anthers 

 orange. 



Margins of moist woods in shady, mossy places, and frequently 

 growing in a bed of pine-needles ; 1500-5600 feet ; not frequent. 



Distribution. Erzgebirge, Eastern, Central, and Western Alps ; 

 Vosges, Cevennes, Pyrenees, Corsica, Arctic Europe and Asia, 

 North America. British. 



Mr. Reginald Farrer aptly points out that this little gem has 

 " only one feeble, long, white piece of cotton by way of a root," 

 but at Lanslebourg he found it growing in slaty silt in a wood, and 

 producing " normal masses of compact roots exactly like any other 

 decent plant's." 1 



Pyrola rotundifolia L. 



Stem erect, leafless except at the base, often reddish, with several 

 red scaly bracts near the summit. Leaves roundish or ovate, entire 

 or obscurely crenate, dark green, shining, and leathery. Raceme 



1 jlmong the Hills (1911), p. 21, 



