112 CHARACTERISTICS OF ALPINE PLANTS. 
resting place before the early winters set in, and may even 
germinate before that time. 
Their pre-winter germination is not common, but to 
make up for this it is remarkable how rapidly the seeds ger- 
minate with the melting of the snow: In cultivation in this 
country it has frequently been observed what rapid germi- 
nation takes place after a fall of snow. 
It can thus be emphasised that the main factor in the 
early flowering of these plants is due to the necessity of their 
reproduction being provided for within a short season. 
With some of the bulbous plants, such as certain Col- 
chicums, which flower late, the danger of injury to the future 
of the race is guarded against by the fact that the seed 
vessels, like the leaves, are not produced until spring, but 
are snug beneath the surface, only emerging to ripen when 
risk of destruction from winter’s rudeness has passed away. 
We now come to the question of the preservation of the 
plants from the severe conditions they have to sustain. 
When they are shrouded in snow during the winter there is 
little danger. That snowy covering is a screen far more 
effective than any which man can provide, unless at a cost 
and by means which cannot be provided in the economy of 
nature. There are, however, plants which have to exist on 
bare, wind-swept slopes, where snow cannot lie for long, and 
where they are exposed to conditions of the utmost hardship. 
These are protected in the same way as others are screened 
from injury by the equally trying conditions of periods of 
drought and brilliant sunshine. In many plants the leaves 
are covered with hairs or even protected by felt-like coatings, 
which ward off the extremes of cold and heat in the most 
effectual way. These protections are of most avail in 
summer, and many plants which could not, even with these 
contrivances, withstand the wintry conditions of these wind- 
swept slopes can be guarded against the trials of summer in 
their own habitats by these contrivances. Some are densely 
covered, and others have these protections less patent to the 
observer. An example of a plant with almost the maximum 
of such protection is the well-known Edelweiss. Many of 
the Saxifrages possess almost the minimum of this protec- 
