226 ALPINES AND BOG-PLANTS 



blooms of SoldaneUa alpina, which show that the snow 

 has only lately been melted from that deep gully, and 

 the roseate heads of Primula farinosa tell the same tale. 

 Then suddenly, as we climb, a splashing violence of blue 

 assails our eyes. It is the first tuft of Gentiana bavarica, 

 not to desert us now until we reach the final wastes of 

 stone and the realm of its cousin hrachyphylla. 



No colour that I know can touch that of the Bavarian 

 Gentian as you see it among the lush emerald grasses of 

 the mountain marshes — a blue, thanks to itself and its 

 setting, of the most pungent solid sapphire, rich and 

 dense. Gentiana bavarica is always beautiful; but I 

 think I never saw it lovelier than one day in late autumn 

 on the Brienzer Rothhorn. I had misguidedly made the 

 ascent of that hackneyed peak to see if by any chance I 

 could hap on Ranunculus rutaefolius, which is reported 

 from the slopes towards Sarnen. Early snows were 

 already descending, and the nights were hard with frost. 

 All day I toiled and caught nothing, slithering perilously 

 about on the glazed, rotten rocks of the northern cliffs, 

 after various alluring-looking buttercups, that always 

 turned out to be ordinary alpestris. So I gave up the 

 struggle and began to stroll down from the peak. 

 October had sent all the plants to their rest, and nothing 

 brilliant was to be seen. The air, too, was clear and 

 cold with the nip of autumn, filled with the indefinable 

 oppressive anguish of the world's yearly death. Far 

 already on her downward journey was Our Lady Perse- 

 phone, carrying the flowers with Her to the underworld ; 

 and the frozen breath of Hades floated up through the 

 Gates of Death thrown wide for Her coming. And then, 

 in a little hollow, dank with molten snow-water, browned 

 and rotten with frost, I came upon a blooming crowd of 

 Bavarian Gentians. Their poor, brave flowers were half- 

 congealed, half-melted with soaking damp and frost, yet 



