BRITISH ALPINES. 63 



found by the botanist who knows their home in the 

 counties of Forfar and Aberdeen, but with the exception 

 of the third, which occurs in a few more stations, he 

 will search in vain for them elsewhere. Again, the May 

 Lily (Maianthemum convallaria), of which the creamy 

 spikes of flowers are such a feature in the pine woods 

 of Norway is only found in one favoured spot on a 

 Yorkshire hillside ; the Ladies* Slipper (Cypripedium 

 Calceolus)y most handsome of orchids, has kept its place 

 in two or three remote woods where it is carefully 

 preserved. Two other rarities are Lloydia serotinUy 

 and Menziesia cxrulea — the former, a small bulb 

 vvith white petals which contrives to hold its own 

 amidst the rocks of Wales, finding, let us hope, a more 

 secure refuge than Llewellyn and his followers ; and 

 the latter, which has survived the forays of lowland 

 nurserymen, maintaining its small colony on one of the 

 bens of Athol. To the flower-hunter, the mere re- 

 counting of names will call to mind memories of tramps 

 over moor and crag, perchance to the high rocks where 

 the Alpine Forget-me-not (Myosotis alpestns)^ with a 

 blue deeper than that of its wood or riverside relatives, 

 was seen ; or the broad mountain top, where near 

 Hngering heaps of snow the Dwarf Cudweed {Gnapha- 

 lium supinuni) was gathered — a plant insignificant in 

 appearance, yet possessing a charm on account of its 

 kinship to the Edelweiss of the Alps. 



Many other species might be described, but we must 

 confine ourselves to the two families of the Saxifrages 

 and the Heaths. The former is the most characteris- 

 tically Alpine group in our native flora ; the latter 



