THE ENGADINE OUT OF SEASON. 



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people seem to think they are the same. But a draught nips flowers and 

 gives human beings colds, whereas free air is needed by both. 



On the first really fine day after the rain, sending my luggage on by 

 the diligence, I drove up the Maloja Pass to Silvaplana in a little light 

 open carriage, which I could stop at my own pleasure, and jump out to 

 secure any desirable flowers. I jumped out only once before reaching 

 the top of the Maloja, and that was for the first Gentiana verna, and 

 for the first Soldanellas and lilac and white Crocuses on the edge of a 

 melting snow-patch just above Casaccia. But on reaching the top of 

 the Maloja it was like coming into another world. The first sign was 

 the coming upon streams of golden Marsh-Buttercups pouring down the 

 cliffs on the edges of the torrents. Like the streams, they came from a 

 lake— of Marsh-Buttercups above. And here were also pink lakes of 

 Primula farinosa, and blue lakes of Hyosotis, and sheets — almost acres 

 — of Viola calcarata, of every shade and tint of lilac and purple. There 

 were plenty of large blue Gentians, though not masses of them here, but 

 the meadows were simply blue with Gentiana verna. Never have I seen it 

 growing like this, and comparatively few people can have seen it so, for 

 it was growing in the now short grass meadows which are really hay- 

 fields. Before the tourists or summer visitors arrive the hay grows up, 

 the Gentians and other lovely and delicate spring flowers are over, hidden 

 by the long grass, and by the end of July or beginning of August the hay 

 is cut, and there are scarcely any flowers to be seen. 



At Silvaplana it was the same thing ; the hay-fields lying between 

 the lake and mountains were gay with these flowers in the middle of 

 June, but coarse Decks, Snake-grass, Dandelions, and Buttercups, besides 

 other even less beautiful plants, were springing up, and, when full-grown, 

 no one would guess the treasures hidden underneath. The marshy 

 meadows on the other side of the lake were full of large patches of 

 Gentiana bavarica, which those who do not observe closely sometimes 

 take for verna. It grows only in wet places ; the stalks are longer and 

 more delicate than those of verna ; the petals are more pointed, and the 

 flower perhaps not quite so large. Nor has it quite so large a white eye. 

 Verna is very variable in colour, ranging from dark blue to an occasional 

 turquoise. But bavarica is of an invariable dark blue — the most brilliant 

 of all the Gentians — a blue that is perfectly dazzling, especially when 

 looking down upon it in the grass, in the morning. As soon as the sun 

 turns in the afternoon it shuts its eyes, and may be easily passed by 

 unnoticed. These. marshes are also full of the smaller Pinguecula, both 

 lilac and white, large purple Pedicularis, and purple Orchis, not to speak 

 again of Primula farinosa, besides masses of Marsh-Buttercups and 

 paler yellow Globe-flowers, which I have never seen elsewhere anything 

 like so fine. 



Then one had only to walk half a dozen yards above the level of the 

 marsh, or along the highroad running along the lakes, to come upon 

 large blue Gentians as plentiful as Daisies in an English meadow. I have 

 never seen them anywhere in such quantities. The hillsides were 

 everywhere simply blue or purple with them. It is difficult to describe 

 them by saying how many were out together in a patch, on one plant, for 

 there was little or no interval between the patches. I have, however, on 



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