In My Vicarage Garden 



the true Alpine pastures it was clear from their 

 colours that they held many flowers. The first 

 true Alpines that we gathered were on our 

 first walk from Thun to St Beattenberg. On the 

 banks of the lake were the elegant Anthericum 

 ramoswii in fair abundance and in full flower, and 

 the pretty little Saxifage, S. aizoides, chiefly the 

 autumnal form with orange dots upon the yellow 

 petals, a very handsome little flower and one very 

 easily grown. This bright Saxifrage followed us 

 everywhere ; it was on the low grounds near Thun 

 and Interlaken, it was high up even to the snow 

 line, and on the moraine of the glacier of Gsalpen- 

 thorn, where the moraine is so shallow that in 

 walking over it my alpenstock frequently struck 

 the ice beneath, there was the Saxifrage with a 

 few other plants, their roots actually touching the 

 ice, and so showing that they loved the moisture 

 more than they dreaded the cold. Through 

 the wood between the Lake of Thun and St 

 Beattenberg I found plenty of orchids past their 

 flowering, and I only found one spike of tway 

 blade ; but I knew I should be too late for the 

 orchids. The most abundant plant was the grass 

 of Parnassus, which very much surprised me, for 

 in England I do not remember to have seen it 

 away from marshy and damp places ; but in 

 Switzerland it was everywhere, even in the driest 

 places on the edges of precipices. I found it in 

 such abundance all the way up from the Lake of 

 Thun to the top of Gwennenalphorn (6770 feet) 

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