NOTES ON RECENT RESEARCH. 



187 



Alps, and inchule floral communities of river beds, heaths, moors, sub- 

 Alpine meadows, rocks and forests, each characterised by certain 

 predominating herbs, shrubs or trees, the presence of which gives the 

 leading features to the formation, as seen from a distance, and implies the 

 association of certain other species with these dominant ones. Eleven 

 such formations are given for the woodlands and forests of the sub- Alpine 

 and Alpine regions of the Northern calcareous Alps and Central Alps, 

 while nineteen are chosen as typifying the meadow and pasture lands and 

 grass-mats of these sub-Alpine and Alpine regions. The remaining 

 thirteen are selected from the flora of the Southern calcareous Alps. 

 Some of these include very long lists of species — e.g. the river-beds and 

 banks and dry water-courses of the sub-x\lpine regions, and the well- 

 known typical Alpine meadows and moorlands ; others — e.g. certain sedge 

 formations, pine lands, &c. — comprise but few, in densely packed masses, 

 giving special features, as of colour, for instance, to the landscape. 



Engler's plan is to grow^ these plants in his new Botanical Gardens 

 in their characteristic associations, so as to illustrate as far as is possible, 

 in the climate of Berlin and in the space at command, the characters of 

 such bits of the Alpine flora as nearly as can be done. 



It is evident that we are here placed face to face with problems that 

 will tax to the utmost all the art of the gardener, even as it does the 

 science of the botanical geographer, and the wonder is perhaps less at the 

 daring which proposes the scheme, and at the admissions of limits to 

 the possibility of completely carrying it out, than at the energy and 

 ingenuity displayed in the plan suggested for carrying into practice so 

 heroic a bit of gardening enterprise. 



The plan of the Alpine garden itself shows a series of hillocks and 

 declivities, undulations and hollows, a water-course with islands and 

 swamps, bits of rockery, forest and meadow-land and so forth, the various 

 aspects, soils, &c., of which are to be utilised in regular order for growing, 

 as we have seen, not merely Alpine plants, but characteristic groups of 

 species to illustrate the points referred to. Thus, we find a certain area 

 which looks on the chart like a " garden bed." On examining this in 

 detail it is seen to have in it a patch of plants such as are found in the 

 dry or half -dry river beds of the sub- Alpine regions — Alders, Hippophae, 

 Willows, &c., with herbs such as Thalictrum, Aquilegia, Asarum ; Grasses 

 such as Hierochloe odorata, Melica, Molinia ; and Sedges such as Carex 

 glaiica, as well as a number of more curious plants. Of these certain 

 Orchids and root parasites have to be excluded owing to cultural 

 difficulties. 



Another patch in this " bed " illustrates the Rock-Heath formation, 

 in which Erica carnea predominates ; while a series of Grasses — Sesleria, 

 Calamagrostis ; Orchids — Epipactis rubiginosa, Gymnadenia ; and many 

 interesting species of plants, such as Tofieldia, Anthericum, Biscutella, 

 Polygala, Globularia, Buphtlialmuvi BeUidiastrnni, Daphne, Sec, Sec, go 

 to make up the community. 



On a knoll near this is a patch of sub-Alpine meadow, of the well- 

 known type which blazes in summer with species of Anemone, Potentilla, 

 Galium, Scabiosa, Arnica, Hypochtieris, and numerous other Composites, 

 Phyteuma, Gentiana, &c. ; but again difficulties of cultivation exclude 



