14 SUB-ALPINE PLANTS 



Lonicera alpigena is a bush of about three feet which has much 

 larger leaves and a shining berry resembling a small, double cherry. 

 It frequents woods and rocky places in the mountains. The 

 Black Honeysuckle {L. nigra) is a sub-alpine shrub, a yard or two in 

 height, with small flowers in pairs, which develop into a pair of 

 black, rounded berries united at the base. 



In many of the shady ravines and wooded gorges one sees an 

 elegant Alpine Elder -tree (Sambucus racemosa), which in late 

 summer and autumn is usually heavily laden with dense clusters 

 of small round berries of a blood-red colour. It grows well among 

 the granite boulders and tall ferns bordering the road which skirts 

 the Tete Noir and overlooks the famous Trient Gorge between 

 Martigny and Argenti^re.yic Indeed, most of the fruit-bearing 

 shrubs and bushes mentioned in this chapter can be seen in a walk 

 along that picturesque route. Here also can sometimes be found 

 the fruits of two kinds of Polygonaium, or Solomon's Seal, as well 

 as those of an alhed plant called Sirepiopus amplextf alius, or Knot- 

 foot. The globular, crimson fruits hang on delicate flower-stalks 

 springing from the leaf-axils and always bent at right angles half- 

 way down, so that this curious plant with very handsome ' berries ' 

 is unmistakable when once seen. It is, however, by no means 

 common. It sometimes grows by the side of huge granite boulders, 

 as near the main road crossing the Col des Montets, and occasionally 

 it can be seen under the shade of a Mountain Ash, whose scarlet 

 berries ripen at the end of August in the higher regions. 



Autumn visitors to the Alps sometimes have their attention 

 arrested by a spiny bush of stiff habit, with narrow, olive-green 

 leaves and orange-yellow almost stemless berries, which are much 

 more densely attached in axillary clusters to the main axis of the 

 shrub than to its branches. This is the Sea Buckthorn (Hippophce 

 rhamnoides). In other countries it grows on the sea coast, and in 

 England and the north of France it is planted on sand-hills to mat 

 the sand together,- but in parts of the Alps it grows naturally in the 

 sandy beds of rivers, both by glacier streams and large rivers such 

 as the Rhone. At the foot of the Col de Balme we have often seen 

 bushes of it situated as high as 5500 feet. It is a somewhat curious 

 example of a littoral plant which ascends to considerable heights in 

 the mountains, though where it does so it is always either in river 

 beds or on steep, sandy screes. But even in such places on the 

 mountains it very probably answers the same useful purpose and 

 prevents the steep slopes of sand and ddbris from being washed 

 away by torrents of surface water. 



Wild Gooseberries {Ribes Grossularia) are frequent in many parts 

 of Switzerland, particularly by roadsides and stony, bushy places 

 in sub-alpine valleys. The berries are usually small and yellowish 

 when ripe, generally glabrous in the mountains, but often covered 

 with stiff glandular hairs in the lowlands. 



