104 FLOWER-FIELDS OF ALPLNE SWITZERLAND 



Wet or fine the glow abides, but in fine weather 

 its rich brilHance is certainly of summer's best and 

 goes far to reconcile us to the lost glories of the 

 Vernal Gentian. There can be few more satisfy- 

 ing recollections of early summer days than when, 

 waist-deep amid the Rhododendrons overgrowing 

 some ancient rock-fall, one gazed across a rosy 

 expanse, sparingly broken by grey boulder and 

 blasted pine and falling away towards the snout 

 of some sea-green glacier backed by snow-draped 

 crags and aiguilles, with, in the foreground, on 

 occasional turfy intervals, groups of orange Arnica 

 and of Gymnadenia albida, the Small Butterfly 

 Orchis, close consort of the Rhododendron, whilst 

 the Swallow-tail and Alpine Clouded- Yellow butter- 

 flies flirted with the blossoms and chased each 

 other in the thin, clear air and joy-inspiring sun- 

 light. " The Alpine Rhododendron . . . once 

 gave me," Mr. George Yeld tells us in his chapter 

 contributed to the Rev. W. A. B. Coohdge's " The 

 Alps in Nature and in History," " one of the most 

 effective sights in the flower-world that I can 

 recall. I came upon it in a late season — acres of 

 Rhododendron ferrugineum, in a forest where the 

 trees grew at some distance apart. The brightness 

 of the colour — a rich red — the extent of the flower 



