108 ALPINE FLOWERS AND GARDENS 



appointment, and it has been a case of the watched 

 kettle never boiling ! For the fact is, this was no 

 flower-bud, but simply the unripe seed-pod. The 

 habit of this Crocus is to bloom leafless in the 

 Autumn, and then to hide its seed-vessel beneath 

 the ground until the Spring, when it throws it up 

 with its leaves to ripen. But this is only the habit 

 of autumnale ; alpinum ripens its seed at once, 

 after flowering. 



We cannot leave the Autumn flowers without 

 some mention of that which is possibly the most 

 characteristic of them all the Carline or Stemless 

 Thistle ( Car Una acaulis). With its glistening, silvery 

 flower-head set close to the ground, this plant, so 

 effectively and unpleasantly on the defensive, is one 

 of the most attractive features of the Alps at this 

 season. Seeming to like all soils, it is abundant ; 

 but it is none the less attractive, and its bloom-heads 

 are often cut and dried by the ladies wherewith to 

 decorate their hats. The peasants look upon it as a 

 weather-glass, for it closes at the approach of rain 

 and storm. They eat the head, too, much as we do 

 the heads of the Globe Artichoke ; they also distil 

 from it a tonic. Nor is the Carline Thistle un- 

 known in the pages of History ; an angel is said to 

 have pointed out its medicinal properties to Charle- 



