PART L] NOTES OF A JOURNEY IN THE ALPS 113 



of its leaves at the base of the bushes, to the flower-clad heaps 

 of stone, and in every peep which the eye obtains through the 

 bush and wood to the villa-dotted margins of the lake, the scene 

 is one of beauty and abounding life. 



Some gorges and precipices are reached, every crevice 

 having some plant in it, and all the ledges being clothed 

 with the greenest grass or bushes, but as yet few of such as 

 are generally termed alpine plants are seen. Many of the most 

 delicate and minute of these would grow well in such spots, 

 but the long grass and low wood would soon overrun them. 

 The copse-wood gets a home on the shattered flanks of the 

 mountain. Among it we find numbers of beautiful flowers 

 that may be termed sub-alpine, and occasionally plants that 

 are found of diminutive size near the top of a mountain, are 

 here met with larger in size. The plants that occur in such 

 places should have an interest for all who love gardens, because 

 they flourish under conditions like those of the greater part 

 of our islands. Every copse, shrubbery, thin wood, or semi- 

 wild spot in pleasure-grounds, throughout the length and 

 breadth of the land, may grow scores of these copse-herbaceous 

 plants, that now rarely find a home in our gardens. 



That fine rock-plant, Genista sagittalis, in bushy masses 

 of yellow flowers, forms the very turf in some spots. Dwarf 

 neat bushes of Cytisus sessilifolius become very common ; and 

 soon I gather my first wild Cyclamen. The Lily-of-the-Valley 

 forms a carpet all under the brushwood. The Martagon Lily 

 shoots up here and there among the common Orchids and 

 Grass, and Hawthorn Bush is in flower here later than on the 

 plain. The Laburnum is mostly past ; but on high precipices 

 we see it in flower. The great yellow Gentian begins to be 

 plentiful, and Glolularia cordifolia is in dense dwarf sheets 

 here and there, showing its latest flowers. Anthericum Liliago 

 is very plentiful and pretty ; and we see all this by the side 

 of well-beaten paths, from which many flowers have been 

 gathered. Trifolium, Dianthus, Anthyllis, and Euphorbia 

 struggle for the mastery wherever a little grass has a 

 chance to spread out, and every chink in the rocks where 



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