100 ALPINE FLOWERS, Part I. 



silvery leaves suspended by this were in all probability as old as 

 any of the great larches in the valley below. 



The Androsaces, with very few exceptions, which have not 

 •until quite recently been successfully cultivated, are, as it were, 

 the very humming-birds of the vegetable kingdom. Their silvery 

 rosettes are more delicately chiselled than the prettiest encrusted 

 Saxifrage ; their flowers have the purity of the Snowdrop, and 

 occasionally the glowing stains and blushes of the alpine Pri- 

 mulas. They are the smallest of beautiful flowering plants, 

 and they grow on the very highest . spots on the Alps where 

 vegetation exists, carpeting the earth with wondrous loveliness 

 wherever the Sun has sufficient power over King Ice and King 

 Death to lay bare for a few weeks in summer a square yard of 

 wet rock-dust. 



The icicle-fringed cliffs, on the concave sunny faces of which 

 the only traces of vegetation seen about here were found, and 

 the rocky precipices seen from the spot, make all this diminutive 

 enduring flower-life the more interesting and remarkable. 



" Meek dwellers mid yon terror-stricken cliffs ! 



With brows so pure, and incense-breathing lips, 

 ' Whence are ye ? Did some white-winged messenger 



On mercy's missions trust your timid germ 



To the cold cradle of eternal snows ? 



Or, breathing on the callous icicles, 



Bid them with tear-drops nurse ye ? 



Tree nor sTirub 



Dare that drear atmosphere ; no polar pine 



Uprears a veteran front ; yet there ye stand, 



t • unblanched amid the waste 



Of desolation." Mrs, Sigourney, 



A very pretty dwarf Phyteuma, with blue heads, was found on 

 the rocks here, and as we got down the mountain, Geum monta- 

 num, with its large yellow flowers, gilded the grass somewhat 

 after the fashion of our Buttercups. Sempervivum Wulfenii, a 

 large kind, was in flower, and the fine Saxifraga Cotyledon was 

 also coming in. One specimen found had a rosette of leaves 

 eight inches across. Pyrethrum alpinum here takes the place 

 of the Daisy, and is full of flower. Arnica montana, so well 

 known as a medicinal plant, is in great abundance, and very 

 luxuriant, looking like a small single Sunflower. Silene acaulis 

 is everywhere, and no description c^n convey an idea of the 

 dense way in which its flowers are produced. Starved between 

 chinks, its cushions are as smooth as velvet, one inch high — 



