Part I. A LITTLE TOUR IN THE ALPS. 83 



There was no need for any careful exertion in getting things up 

 in this spot. 



I was of course very glad to meet with my first silvery Saxifrage 

 in a wild state, having long held that these Saxifrages, so often 

 Icept in pots even in botanic gardens, require no such attention , 

 and may be grown everywhere in the open air with the greatest 

 ease. The position of the specimens here fully confirmed this 

 opinion. They grew in every conceivable position, at the bottom 

 of small narrow chasms, under the shade of the bushes, in 

 little thimble-holes on the surface of the rocks, in a tiny and 

 sometimes flaccid condition from the drought ; and here and 

 there among Festuca glauca and Asplenium Trichomanes, where 

 the accumulated soil was a little deeper. 



The vernal Gentian is known to many as the type of all 

 that is charming in alpine vegetation : its vivid colour and 

 peerless beauty stamp themselves on the mind of the dullest 

 traveller that crosses the Alps as deeply as the vast and death- 

 like wastes of snow, ever-darting silvery waterfalls, or the high, 

 dark, plumy ridges of pines, though it be but a diminutive speck 

 compared to any of these. It is there a hardy little gem-like 

 triumph of life in the midit of death, buried under the deep all- 

 shrouding snow for four, six, or even eight months out of the 

 twelve, and blooming during the .brightest summer days near the 

 margin of the wide glaciers, and within the sound of the little 

 snow cataracts that tumble off the high Alps in summer. But it 

 is not confined to such awful, if attractive, spots ; it descends to 

 the crests of comparatively low mountain tops like this, where 

 the sun's heat has power to drive away all the snow in spring, 

 and where the snow is quickly replaced with boundless 

 meadows of the richest grass, that form a setting for innumer- 

 able flowers. Among these the "blue Gentian" occurs, and 

 blooms abundantly late in spring, while acres of the same 

 kind lie deep and dormant, under the cold snow, on the slope 

 of the high neighbouring alp for months afterwards. It also 

 ventures into non-alpine countries, being found in Teesdale 

 and Galway. 



This brilliant Gentian is very plentiful in the pastures here, 

 but it is now passed out of flower, and the seed-pods, very full 

 and strong, are to be seen among the taller herbage. In one 

 spot I found a perfect bloom, the deepest bit of blue on the 

 whol,e mountain. A few weeks earlier this plant was in per- 



G 2 



