CHAPTER III. 



British Alpines. 



In that most delightful old garden book " Paradisi in 

 Sole — Paradisus Terrestris," Parkinson relates how he 

 had sent to him by a " Courteous Gentlewoman " 

 living near " Ingleborough, the highest hill in England " 

 — a rare flower — ^which he calls Elleborine major. 

 In acknowledging the gift he digresses, and in the quaint 

 phraseology which imparts such an added flavour to 

 his book, he suggests that his countrymen should give 

 more attention to the plants growing about their homes, 

 and to those they come across in their travels, for he 

 doubts not that there were many " that doe lye hid 

 and not observed, which in time may be discovered." 

 His book was written about a century before Linnaeus 

 started on his journeys in search of flowers ; and the 

 knowledge of British botany amongst Parkinson's 

 contemporaries was as cloudy as that of his own know- 

 ledge of the relative heights of English mountains. 

 But his appeal — at least from the latter part of the 

 eighteenth century — found an increasing response, 

 and for many years the Flora of Great Britain has been 

 thoroughly explored, and the plants tabulated accord- 

 ing to the districts in which they grow. 



The most arduous labours in this work of investiga- 

 tion fell to the men who explored the mountain districts, 



56 



