

40 ALPINE FLOWERS AND ROCK GARDtENS. 



own ; narrowing into the sky it lets the sunHght strike 

 down to the dew. And if ever a superstitious feehng 

 comes over us among the Pine glades, it is never 

 linked with the old German forest fear, but it is only a 

 more solemn tone of the fairy enchantment that haunts 

 our English meadows/' 



Cheerfulness and perfection of form are not the only 

 charms of the Pine. To these must be added the 

 delicious odours which the passing breeze wafts abroad, 

 and the soft murmuring melody which arises as the 

 wind gently rocks their boughs. Lovely at all times are 

 "ye pine groves with your soft and soul-like sounds." 

 Beneath their shade the ground is covered with 

 luxuriant mosses, with ferns, and dwarf evergreen 

 shrubs. Though the true heaths are wanting, the 

 heath family is particularly well represented by the 

 large bushes of the Alpine rose, now in bud, and which 

 in a week or two will be a gorgeous mass of red blossom ; 

 by Whortleberry with its dehcate pink wax-like flowers ; 

 by the blue-berried Bilberry, and the crimson fruited 

 Bearberry, and by the Pyrolas. One of these is only 

 just coming into bloom, but the one-flowered species 

 is fully out, and elsewhere we have seen the delicate 

 bells of the round-leaved Winter-green almost as 

 beautiful as those of the Lily of the Valley, of which 

 we have gathered handfuls a few miles away. 



Purple and cream Butterwort grow by the rills, 

 which trickle through the woods ; golden Saxifrage 

 adorns the little pools ; and the small Gentian greets 

 us by the path side, with its lovely azure blooms. Blue 

 Speedwells, purple Vetches, creamy clusters of the 



