SOME SPRING AND SUMMER ALPINES 97 



yet, if treated with discernment, its properties are 

 nothing but beneficent. It is much used in homoeo- 

 pathy. One of the last of Summer's flowers, it 

 frequents pastures and shrubby slopes from about 

 1,500 feet to some 6,000 feet in districts frequented 

 by the Humble-bee, which insect, apparently, is this 

 flower's only faithful friend and aid to fertilization. 

 A curious fact about this plant is that, although 

 the cattle will not touch it as it grows, they eat 

 it, and eat it with impunity, in the dry hay. A. 

 Lycoctonum is its less civilized, less erect-growing, 

 yellow-flowered brother, its popular name of Yellow 

 Wolfs-bane (more expressive in French as Tue- 

 loup] warning us of the family aptitude if treated 

 injudiciously ! 



Perhaps the most used, medicinally, of all 

 poisonous Alpine plants is the large orange- 

 flowered Arnica (Arnica montand). Found at from 

 about 3,000 feet to about 6,000 feet, its roots, 

 leaves, and flowers (especially its flowers) are used 

 to make a tincture for the treatment of cuts, 

 bruises, and rheumatism. The peasant sometimes 

 smokes its leaves by way of tobacco (in France it 

 is known as Tabac des Savoyards} however, the 

 peasant is not usually fastidious as regards the 

 * weed ' he smokes ! The cows commonly avoid 



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