SUB-ALPINE PLANTS AND WHERE THEY GROW 5 



in the sub-alpines. It will be remembered that most of the high 

 pasture and rock plants are of small stature, often growing in tufts, 

 mats, or cushions ; with small leaves arranged in flat rosettes 

 pressed against the ground. The roots are often very long, some- 

 times penetrating several feet into the ground so as to absorb all the 

 moisture and nutriment possible, and also to prevent them from 

 being blown away bodily by the high winds so frequent in the Alps. 

 Many of them are prevented from being dried up through too rapid 

 transpiration by developing a copious covering of hairs or woolly 

 tomentum, as, e.g., in Hieracium villosum and in Edelweiss. Most 

 conspicuous of all is the abundance of blossom and the brilliant 

 colour of many of the Alpine flowers, particularly of the blues, 

 reds, and purples. 



Some of these characteristics are less noticeable in the plants 

 of the mountain woods and meadows, for the simple reason that 

 there is no great cause for their existence ; for the climate is less 

 severe and the winds less high. But, though it is supposed that 

 the extreme brilliance of the light at high altitudes has a great 

 effect upon the colouring of the flowers, yet in that particular, 

 and especially in the abundance of blossom, many of the sub-alpines 

 can well hold their own. The rapidity with which they blossom is 

 another point in common. A large number of Alpine plants are 

 specially constructed with a view to flowering at the earliest 

 possible opportunity, just as are the Arctic species. The shortness 

 of the summer is naturally the chief reason which has led to such 

 peculiarities. After the flowering stage is more or less over, the 

 seeds have to ripen. Time must then be allowed for their dispersal 

 under suitable conditions, and finally for their getting a good start 

 before they are embedded in the first snows of winter. 



Most summer visitors to the Alps have noticed the snow melting 

 from the highest pastures and exposing a sodden, brown sward. 

 They have seen the Crocuses and Soldanellas flowering at the very 

 edge of the melting snow, and sometimes pushing their blossoms 

 through it ; but they may not have kept an eye on those sodden 

 patches of snow-freed pasture during the next week or two. Had 

 they done so, they would have seen a veritable transformation, so 

 rapidly does the grass get green and bespangled with flowers of 

 every shade and colour. 



It is the same with the meadows lower down ; but to see this it is 

 necessary to visit Switzerland in May. Towards the end of April 

 the snow has usually disappeared from the Alpine meadows ; and, 

 though this is a pecuUarly disagreeable season, with very httle green 

 grass to be seen, it is astonishing how soon the grass grows and 

 the flowers appear. The meadow flowers are, for the most part, 

 distinct from those which predominate in the upper pastures ; 

 and they are distinct from those of the woods. 



The meadows usually occupy the more or less level portion of 



