ALPINE PLANTS IN NATURE. 23 



learned among the plants may be applied in the garden 

 at home. 



There is at present much that is either feeble or 

 false (and sometimes both) in rock gardening. It is 

 not with unmixed surprise that one occasionally hears 

 a genuine flower-lover refuse to take up Alpines, on 

 the ground that such examples of rock gardening as he 

 has seen in the grounds of friends remind him of a 

 quarry — there is an abundance of stones, but a singular 

 paucity of flowers. Nature is prodigal of both, but 

 she practises her greatest profusion with plants. She 

 provides them with a lavish hand, and we who set out 

 to learn from her must see to it that the end and aim 

 of our home operations is the provision of flowers. 



We have seen that Alpine plants in Nature are 

 of close, dense, tufty habit, with flowers on short 

 stems. They are a remarkable example of adapta- 

 tion to environment. When transplanted to low- 

 land gardens some of the kinds become modified, 

 assuming a looser and more straggly habit. The 

 well known Edelweiss is a case in point. At home, 

 the Alpines exhibit a remarkable constancy. In his 

 masterly work on the origin of species and varieties 

 by mutation, Hugo de Vries calls attention to the 

 number of species which are the same in Alpine and 

 Arctic regions. He points out that some forms are 

 identical, while others only differ so sUghtly as to 

 suggest that they are elementary species of the same 

 systematic type. This arouses a consideration of 

 absorbing interest. It is impossible that the plants 

 can have found their way or been transplanted from 



