A COLLECTING DAY ABOVE AROLLA 81 



is the home of so much brilliant beauty, such enormous 

 peace. 



The tutelary deity of the Arolla valley is Androsace 

 imbricata. And for the Androsace you needs must go 

 very high up into open spaces to which the open space 

 below the Mont Collon is a crowded jungle. Looking 

 out across the acres of stone, grim evidence of altitude, 

 that stretch before the hotel, it is hard to realise that 

 only far and far above all this do you come into the real 

 openness, the real freedom of heart and soul and eye. 

 The upward way leads you first of all across the rocky 

 wilderness, where little dwells but Sempervivum montanum, 

 and then across the stream, along whose further bank it 

 continues for some time a mild ascent, beneath the shadow 

 of a precipice. Sempervivum montanum need not detain 

 the searcher. It is a rather undistinguished little House- 

 leek, with lopsided rosettes of pale green, and heads of 

 sad murrey-coloured Catherine-wheels. So, unheeding 

 the small fry of the mountains, one pursues one's way 

 upwards in the grateful shadow of the cliff. Campanula 

 pusilla is rampant everywhere, the immense violet bells of 

 Campanula Scheuchzeri glitter imperially wherever water 

 distils, on wet rocks Pinguicula lifts its purple Gloxinia- 

 blooms above its flattened star of viscid, carnivorous 

 leaves, and everywhere Saxrfraga aeizoon shows its stout 

 little creamy spires. Only in the moraine garden shall we 

 ever be able to achieve the full charm of Saxifraga 

 aeizoon. On rock-work, in cleft and border, it has high 

 value and charm indeed, but set it thickly on a slope 

 built only of small limestone chips, and there, alone 

 against that background of broken stone, so lovely in its 

 innumerable lights and shades, its tones of lilac, white 

 and grey, will you get the full effect of the Saxifrage, its 

 tidy masses of blue and silver rosettes, the serried solid 

 blooms in their rounded spikes on abundant, sturdy stems. 



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