146 Flowers and their Unbidden Guests. 



a long period, nay sometimes lias maintained itself 

 up to the present day, and this without change in 

 its form; a second in the same low-lying position 

 gradually gave way before the new comers, better 

 adapted than itself to the new conditions there prevail- 

 ing, and found in compensation a fresh home in the 

 higher regions, now become accessible to vegetable life ; 

 while a third extended its boundary into the region 

 above, but at the same time managed also to main- 

 tain its position below, on the condition however of 

 there developing into a new species. 



Soldanella al^vna belongs to the last of these three 

 groups. At the present day it is to be found everywhere 

 above the tree-line in the alpine region, in company 

 with plants of very low organisation ; and no sooner 

 is the snow melted than it is to be seen coming into 

 flower, preferentially at the very border of the melting 

 snow-fields,^ on ground still soaking with ice-cold 

 water. Within a day or two a shaft, destitute of hairs, 

 and about 7 cm. in height, bearing at its top one to three 

 proterogynous flowers, develops itself at the expense of 

 the nutritive material that has been stored up in reserve 



1 I have pointed out elsewhere (Verh. d. naturw. -medio. Ver. 

 in Innsbriick, May 15, 1872) that SoldaneUa aVpma L. will grow 

 under the snow at the expense of the reserve-substances stored up 

 in its evergreen leaves, on ground still soaked with snow-water, and 

 at a temperature scarcely one degree above zero ; and that the heat 

 which it gives out in the process of respiration melts holes in the 

 superincumbent snow, through which the flower-stalks then find 



