I 



44 ALPINE FLOWERS AND ROCK GARDENS. 



It is a moment to recall when one sees an Alpine 

 Gentian at home for the first time, more particularly 

 if the species should be the lighter blue Gentiana verna. 

 There is something almost ethereal about it, it is a 

 flower which seems to belong more to the blue heavens 

 above than to the gross earth beneath. No wonder 

 Alpine flowers excite the enthusiasm of all who go to 

 Switzerland. It is due not merely to their beauty 

 — marvellous as this is — ^but to the grandeur of their 

 surroundings, and to the consciousness of the brave 

 fight they wage with the rigours of the climate and the 

 stormy elements. The choicest garden flowers owe 

 their beauty to the unremitting care of the gardeners, 

 to the constant development of a long race of cultivators, 

 but these no man has aided ; they have — if we accept 

 the older view of creation — held their ground since the 

 earth was commanded to bring forth " grass, the herb 

 yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit,'* or, 

 if we accept the evolutionary view, they have won 

 their beauty of form and variety of structure in the 

 great struggle for existence, and are its crowning effort. 



Long might we linger over each plant, noting the 

 manner in which all its parts are so put together as to 

 aid its efforts to prolong life and to perpetuate its race, 

 but let us note only this. In the mountain regions 

 bright days are fewer than in the valleys, and when 

 the lowlands are bathed in sunshine the high rocks 

 are frequently hidden in low-lying clouds and mist. 

 Hence it is of the utmost importance that every sunny 

 hour of the short summer should be utiHsed. For this 

 end the brilHancy of the floral colours is of immense 



