In My Vicarage Garden 



impossible to speak of the flowers of Piora 

 without using superlatives and what seems like 

 exaggeration. Before I left England I had been 

 told by more than one friend well versed in flowers 

 generally, and especially in Alpine flowers, that in 

 no part should I find such a paradise of flowers 

 as at Piora. So I went in faith, and they really 

 far exceeded my wildest expectations. I took with 

 me Gremli's Swiss Flora for Tourists, published 

 in English by Nutt, in the Strand — a most excellent 

 little book which I can strongly recommend to all 

 who go to Switzerland in search of flowers. I 

 can also recommend, but not so highly, Correvon's 

 Flore Coloriee de Poche, published in Paris. It 

 has some fairly good plates, which are helpful, but 

 it only records the more conspicuous flowers, and 

 is not exhaustive as Gremli's is. Now Gremli 

 describes 2637 Swiss plants, including ferns and 

 grasses, but without the mosses, fungi, and lichens, 

 which of themselves must be a study ; and I feel 

 quite sure that within a radius of three miles or 

 less from the hotel it would be quite possible for 

 a good searcher to find more that one-half of these 

 2637 plants. I was not searching for plants; I 

 simply admired and gathered those that were near 

 the paths in my walks ; and yet the number of 

 different plants that I saw — many of them seen 

 wild for the first time — were a constant delight, 

 and a delight that was varied every day and in 

 every walk. It was not only the large number of 

 species, out it was the large number of the in- 

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