SOME WAYS AND MEANS 167 



Bladder Campion {Silene Cucubalus) are most 

 precious. Who that has seen the Marsh Marigold 

 pencilling with golden lines the course of some 

 mountain rivulet through the spring fields, and 

 lying, with Prirmda farinosa, a brilliant mass, in 

 some juicy hollow; or the two Buttercups, blending 

 with acres of Ranunculus aconitifoUus, and forming 

 a filmy sea of yellow and white ; or slopes packed 

 with the Bladder Campion and the tall Rampion 

 {Phyteuma betoniccefolium), a perfect picture of 

 grey- white and blue, — who that has seen these 

 common flowers thus growing but has not vowed 

 rarity to be no essential passport to the ranks of 

 beauty? I remember once— it was at Montroc, 

 near the Col des Montets — passing over a meadow- 

 slope of Bladder Campion and Rampion, with just 

 a sprinkling of that other and closely allied Cam- 

 pion, Silene riutans (the Nottingham Catchfly), 

 and the effect so fascinated me, as to send up 

 these Campions considerably in my esteem, as 

 subjects with decorative possibilities of which I 

 had not dreamed. 



Objection may possibly be taken to the large 

 area required for the creation of an Alpine meadow 

 in comparison with its short duration as " a thing 

 of beauty." It will perhaps be objected that our 



