• RAMBLES WITH A TROWEL." 



107 



course, have to be awaited for years in the case of such genera as 

 the Primulas, Saxifrages, and others. 



But to return to plants and plant-hunting. A word or two 

 on the subject of a plant-collector's outfit and paraphernalia may 

 not be unacceptable to any who may contemplate rambles like mine. 

 Of course it is very simple. As regards dress there is nothing to 

 be said ; it may well be that of the ordinary Alpine climber, 

 minus the ice-axe and blue spectacles ; or that of the more 

 everyday rambler. For your search, remember, will never carry 

 you above nine thousand feet above sea-level or thereabouts, for 

 as you reach the line of perpetual snow plants become scanty, 

 and I know of none found above the level which I have named 

 which are not found probably in greater plenty below it. You 

 gain little or nothing by going higher. But it is only at from 

 eight thousand to nine thousand feet, I think, that you reach 

 the mountain homes of such gems as Eritrichium nanum^ 

 Androsace glacialis, Banuncidus glacialis, and a few others. 



I carry and advise a belt, with scabbard, to hold the trowel. 

 The form for this latter which I find best is that of a long steel 

 scoop. I got it originally I know not where ; I think at Berne. 

 It is not, I believe, generally to be had in English shops, but 

 without difficulty you can get it made for you. The steel should 

 be good, and neither break nor bend, for accident to it fifty or a 

 hundred miles from " supplies " is serious. For this reason, I 

 carry a reserve trowel — indeed two. This plan has the additional 

 advantage that you can either pay a local rustic or, better, lure 

 an unsuspecting friend to accompany you, and make him dig 

 roots for you. The trowel is practically the only tool I use ; but 

 it is not equal to lifting a few deep -rooting things like Anemone 

 alpina and sulphurea ; and even the local spades — which on 

 occasion you "beg, borrow, or steal" from the hotel gardener, 

 and carry to heights strange to them — are not equal to the 

 task. 



I once in my green youth devised an elaborate spade for the 

 purpose now in hand, and had it made to order " regardless of 

 cost." It consisted of a strong steel blade made to screw to the 

 end of a specially constructed alpenstock, and to take off and on. 

 It was a beautiful instrument — " on paper " ; but, like so many 

 rubbishy plants " off it," it was a distinct failure. It went to 

 pieces at its first or second encounter with, I think, the Schilt- 



