242 ALPINES AND BOG-PLANTS 



used to go and worship it ; and never does the almost 

 exotic charm of the plant evaporate ; it is so profuse and 

 so lovable in blossom that one can hardly, somehow, 

 believe a thing thus richly dainty to be a native of our 

 weU-trodden, humdrum land. And, with the blue of 

 Campanula hederacea, the Pimpernel becomes loveliness 

 made more lovely. Nature, when she turns her mind to 

 the matter, is indeed a cunning artist, and arranges many 

 a picture of bewildering beauty. Have you ever seen the 

 orange of Arnica blending, on a high, rough mountain- 

 side, with the violet daisies oi Aster alpirvus and the great 

 shaggy bells of Campanula barbata, soft and pale in their 

 delicate china-blue .? Or the violent sapphire of Gentiana 

 bavarica grading with the gentle azure of Myosotis rupi- 

 cola against the ardent matted rose of Androsace glacialis, 

 with the snow-and-gold of Ranunculus alpestris to com- 

 plete the harmony ? Or, for a subtler effect, a meadow 

 crowded with the celestial stars of Gentiana verna, amid 

 the innumerable lilacs, mauves, purples, tyrian darknesses 

 of a hundred million mountain pansies .'' 



The most subtle picture, though, that I ever saw, lies 

 far back in my memory of the Alps. I was descend- 

 ing through a golden sunset, from Beatenberg to 

 noisome, clamorous Interlaken. The evening was clear, 

 calm, and radiant ; the town lay very far below us, 

 unseen, unguessed, unguessable amid the benign tran- 

 quillity of the hills. And suddenly we came out into 

 a marshy clearing of the woodland, falling away steeply 

 down towards the sunset. And the whole slope, against 

 the fiery light of the West, was thick with the soft rose 

 of Primula farinosa, abundant as sands of the sea, and 

 among it everywhere stood the livid, purple spikes of 

 Bartsia alpina, incandescent and amethystine in the red 

 glow. Now the Alpine Bartsia, with dull, labiate flowers, 

 is coloured, bracts and leaves and all, with a most 



