July 4, 1872. ] 



JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER, 



13 



Their home is amid the " thick-ribbed iee " and everlasting 

 snows. Except when the snows shelter and hide them, they are 

 subject to the influence of intense solar light and a highly rarefied 

 atmosphere, more frequently and more heavily charged with 

 moisture than the air of the plains. When we make an analysis 

 of the genera comprised in a fair selection of Alpine plants, we 

 shall find no hint of morphological or biological relationship. 

 "We may group them as Alpine plants, and there is an end of 

 all attempts at classification ; for they include shrubs and herba- 

 ceous plants of families widely separated by every recognised 

 system of botany. But species of the same genera often occur 

 on widsly-separated mountain ranges, and this fact surely 

 affords a hint of a common origin. Now in respect of the 

 European mountains and those of northern Asia, a considerable 

 proportion of the plants met with in their higher altitudes, and 

 especially such as haunt the snowline and the neighbourhood of 

 glaciers, are again met with on the plains and lower slopes of 

 the Polar regions of the north. Between the Alps and the Nor- 

 wegian mountains there are extensive plains, which, measured 

 by a direct line on the map, separate them by a distance of 

 800 miles. Yet here the Alpine flora is in great part repeated, 

 and thence through northern Lapland and Siberia, and further 

 north still, the same plants occur, apparently rejoicing, and cer- 

 tainly thriving, in climates so rigorous that both their animal 

 and vegetable products are restricted to a comparatively few 

 types, and these adapted by constitution and conditions least 

 favourable to organic development. Where earth and sea are 

 icebound for eight or nine months in the year, and the coasts 

 are blocked with icebergs during the few long days of summer, 

 these plants hold their own with wonderful pertinacity, and in 

 their short season of continuous sunlight make the dreary land- 

 scape smile with their fresh green herbage and their lovely 

 flowers. It is impossible to avoid the suggestion of the coinci- 

 dence that these hardy plants owe their origin to conditions 

 formerly subsisting between the far-removed Alpine and Polar 

 regions, but which long since ceased to exist. May we not, 

 therefore, say that in all probability the Alpine flora is (to use a 

 geological phrase) an outlier of an ancient Polar flora, and a 

 witness to-day of the glacial era, when the northern parts of 

 Europe and America were covered with fields of ice ? The 

 probable common origin of Alpine and Polar plants was long 

 ago suggested by Professor Schouw, in his "Earth, Plants, and 

 Man ; " but it has been lately considered in a more systematic 

 manner by Dr. A. Pokorny in his "Origin of Alpine Plants."* 

 The first cited of these writers observes that " the Polar flora, 

 or, as we may term it, the Alpine flora, is not merely met with 

 in the higher regions of the Alps — the highest mountains in 

 Europe ; it is found everywhere in Europe, and the northern 

 parts of Asia and America, where mountain masses present 

 themselves high enough to furnish a suitable climate to these 

 plants in their more elevated districts. Hence we find this 

 flora in the Pyrenees, in the Sierra Nevada, the Carpathians, 

 and the Caucasus ; in the Norwegian, Scotch, and Icelandic 

 mountains, and traces of it are seen on the highest peaks of the 

 Apennines and the Grecian chains ; it is also seen on the Altai 

 and other Asiatic mountains, and on the higher chains of North 

 America." To find an explanation of the relation of these far- 

 separated floras, we must without doubt go far back in time, and 

 endeavour to picture the northern continents as they must have 

 appeared in the glacial era. Then, indeed, the mystery appears 

 to be solved. We find on the Faulhorn, at an altitude of 

 8,000 feet, 135 species of flowering plants, of which forty are found 

 also in Lapland, and eight in Spitzbergen. In Saussure's 

 " Garden of the Glacier," in the middle of the Mer de Glace of 

 Mont Blanc, at an altitude of 9,000 feet, may be found eighty- 

 seven species of flowering plants, of which twenty-four are also 

 found in Lapland, and fifteen in Spitzbergen. The distribution 

 of land and water has undergone vast changes, the great plains 

 of Europe now separate districts that were vmited by fields of 

 ice, and the Alpine and Polar floras are put so wide apart that 

 unless we had abundant testimony of their former unity, the 

 hypothesis of a common origin would not be worthy of a 

 moment's attention. 



When we investigate the relationships of Alpine plants among 

 themselves, we find as above remarked, no distinct physio- 

 logical, botanical, or morphological intimacies. For this reason, 

 it is, perhaps, that writers on Alpine plants have been care- 

 ful to avoid the important question of their direct relation 

 to the peculiar conditions under which they are produced. 

 What are the proper characteristics of Alpine plants ? We 

 shall find no answer to the question in the books, for our 

 friends who teach us how to select and cultivate them con- 

 found the products of different zones, and are as ready to regard 

 Pines, Firs, and Larches as Alpine plants as to place in that cate- 

 gory the Soldanella, the Silene, and the Androsace. The fact 

 is, we have nothing to do with trees, shrubs, or grasses in this 

 connection. We must ascend towards the snow line to find 

 those plants of low cushion-like growth, producing compara- 

 tively large flowers notable for the purity of their colours, to 



* De l'Origine des Plnntes Alpines. Paris, 1871. 



which alone the term " Alpine " can be properly applied. And 

 when we find them, we are at once struck by certain character- 

 istics of growth and aspect, which are the evident analogues of 

 the circumstances governing their development. In other words, 

 they are related by their adaptation to their silent homes, where 

 winter rules nine months in the } r ear, where spring is charac- 

 terised by frosty nights and changing days, in which sunshine 

 and shower are ever contending, and where summer and autumn 

 are unknown. 



We dismiss all trees and shrubs from our consideration and 

 ask again, What is an Alpine plant? It is not an annual. If 

 au annual were lodged on the bleak mountain top it could not 

 perpetuate its race, for it could not have time to ripen and dis- 

 tribute its seeds. All Alpine plants are of necessity of perennial 

 duration, herbaceous or sub-shrubby, and of close stunted growth . 

 Their growth in height is restricted by the rigours of their 

 Polar clime, and their frequent and long-continued covering of 

 snow favours a lateral extension and promotes the close turf- 

 like habit common to them all. It is especially worthy of 

 observation that we rarely meet with hairy or downy plants on 

 Alpine heights, and never with examples of spines or thorns. 

 In Professor Schouw's enumeration of the characters of these 

 plants he remarks, "that moist soils produce smooth plants, 

 and dry soils plants furnished with hairs and thorns ; since, 

 therefore, the soil in which Alpine plants grow is kept con- 

 stantly moist by the flowing down of melted snow, we see in 

 this the reason of that peculiarity." 



It is equally consistent with their conditions of life that they 

 should be strangely sensitive to any increase of temperature 

 above the freezing-point. The first loosening of their icy bonds 

 is followed by an awakening of their energies, and they burst 

 into flower with the earliest encouragements of the kindly 

 sunshine that ushers in their brief season of activity. Their 

 early flowering promotes the ripening of their seeds ere winter 

 seals them up again, and, indeed, none but early-flowering plants 

 are capable of permanent existence in a climate characterised 

 by almost continuous winter. The low temperature of the higher 

 Alpine regions sufficiently accounts for the absence from Alpine 

 flowers of honey and fragrance, and, it may be added, of poi- 

 sonous secretions ; yet from many of them cattle derive subsist- 

 ence ; and from a few we obtain bitter extracts that are service- 

 able as medicines. There remains, indeed, but one prominent 

 peculiarity which appears to be inexplicable as a necessary con- 

 sequence of the circumstances by which these plants are sur- 

 rounded, and that is the comparatively large size of their flowers. 

 Their pure colours we may reasonably associate with the inten- 

 sity of solar light they enjoy in their short season of growth; 

 but why their flowers should as a rule exceed in size, propor- 

 tionately to the plants producing them, those of their nearest 

 relatives of the plains, is probably at present beyond our means 

 of determining. 



It may be said that these considerations are without interest 

 for the so-called "practical" man. The creature who rejoices 

 in this designation may take his own course, and despise every- 

 thing in the nature of scientific inquiry; but if he will not heed 

 these matters he can never make fair progress in the cultivation 

 of Alpine plants, and had best, therefore, reserve his practical 

 skill for the hewing of wood and the drawing of water , or any 

 other occupation that may be carried to a successful issue in 

 ignorance of the ways and works of Nature. The cultivation of 

 Alpine plants must be founded on a clear perception of their 

 requirements, for they will not alter their nature to please us. 

 Now, it must be confessed that the difficulty of providing for 

 their requirements presents an insuperable obstacle to their 

 general diffusion in English gardens. It is the business of this 

 paper, however, to indicate how, to a certain extent, difficulties 

 may be overcome, so that those who would for their pleasure 

 establish Alpine gardens may be encouraged in the commend- 

 able enterprise. 



The Alpine garden will include many plants that require no 

 particular care, and that, indeed, have long since been natural- 

 ised in our parterres and borders. But it will also include a 

 number of exquisitely beautiful subjects of a most untractable 

 nature, and for these we must make careful provision. It is ob- 

 vious that for their especial benefit our efforts should be directed 

 towards the establishment of the coldest possible local climate. 

 The " cold shade of the aristocracy " will not avail much, but 

 an extensive rockery, containing a great bulk of material, and 

 ranging generally east and west, with deep inlets on the northern 

 side, will afford a choice of aspects ; the sunny side for the free- 

 growing rock plants with which we are most familiar ; and the 

 shady side for the more fastidious of our genuine Alpine flowers, 

 that are usually killed out when subjected to the ordinary influ- 

 ences of our climate. 



It is particularly worthy of notice that a constant flow of water, 

 however minute in quantity, exercises a powerful influence in 

 cooling the surfaces over which it flows. The water should flow 

 from the highest parts of the rockery in the thinnest possible 

 film over the greatest possible extent of surface. A simple rill 

 will be comparatively useless, and the .same may be said of a 



