6 ALPINE FLOWERS AND GARDENS 



its Alps in some of their most bewitching and 

 distinctive moments. Comparatively few are in 

 the mountains in early spring, or, indeed, know the 

 mountains during any part of spring. About the 

 middle or end of February there is a rush away 

 from the mountains, away from the threatened 

 melting of the snow ; and the return thither, in 

 any marked degree, is not until late in June or 

 early in July. And during the interval during, 

 that is to say, the months of April and May there 

 is in progress a rapid and delightful transformation 

 which it were a thousand pities to miss : a trans- 

 formation such as no other months can supply. 



As the snow recedes, the brown bed of the pine- 

 forests is decked with myriads of Hepatica ; their 

 thick clusters of mauve-blue blossoms, relieved 

 here and there by the rarer forms of white and 

 rose, glint gaily among the sombre tree-trunks, 

 creating a veritable laughing fairyland where, 

 usually, all is sedate, if not actually gloomy. The 

 gorges are peopled with the nodding caps, tipped 

 green and yellow, of the large Snowflake (Lencojum 

 vernum), and with the white, brush-like heads of the 

 Butterbur (Petasites niveus), while the damp and 

 rocky sides of these gorges are stained magenta-red 

 by innumerable tufts of the Sticky Primrose 



