28 ALPINES AND BOG-PLANTS 



into the eye of day, comparatively enormous little cups, 

 waxy, coral-pink, delightful. You will find the Alpine 

 Azalea all over the higher ranges of Scotland, and every- 

 where in the upper Alps. It makes a great part in that 

 fine, close lawn which you reach below the lowest lip of 

 the moraines ; and its frail, hard woody branches go trail- 

 ing far and wide, making warp and woof for the Andro- 

 saces carnea, vitaliana and Chamaejasme, for the alpine 

 clovers, Oxytropids and Phacas, for the gentians vema, 

 brachyphylh, and nivalis. Unfortunately it is a very diffi- 

 cult plant to collect, and not by any means an easy plant to 

 grow. It is strange that a native should be perverse, but 

 Azalea procumbens requires a good deal of care — perfect 

 roots to start with (a sufficiently hard proviso), then a 

 cool, open space, in light, cool peaty soil, rich with 

 vegetable humus. At present, I believe, I have only one 

 thriving plant, and that but small. Nor is it easy to get 

 more. This year, however, I am trying the experiment 

 of bringing down a quantity of the fine powdered black 

 humus, decay of decay of decay from the very beginning 

 of things, which is to be collected from peat-hags high on 

 the saddle of Ingleborough. Of the chemical properties 

 of this pulverised stuff I leave wiser heads than mine to 

 speak ; in a way the nutritive qualities of this extinct 

 rottenness must have changed or failed. And yet it plays 

 an incalculably great part in the life of the higher Alpine 

 vegetation, contributing some mysterious gift essential to 

 the well-being of such things as the arctic Andromedas, 

 and the mountain Azalea. Possibly, though not in itself 

 food, it provides some substitute for food — of which the 

 truly Alpine plants are very impatient in any excessive or 

 obvious degree— perhaps, that is, the humus acts as a sub- 

 tilised nutrition inoffensive to the dainty tastes of these 

 mountaineers, and yet satisfactory to their needs. 



Of the other Azaleas my song is still sorrow. There 



