" RAMBLES WITH A TROWEL." 



115 



Torubea, and a dozen others, which must be made to relinquish 

 to me, some day, samples of their wealth and loveliness. 



And I have forgotten, as ere leaving France I should not 

 have done, to remind you that the Alps of Dauphine, with Monte 

 Viso, and the Alpes-Maritimes, are far less explored than are 

 others. Though it is improbable that they can ever yield any- 

 thing (unless, perhaps, a few new varieties) wholly new, it is 

 ■certain that they, like the Eastern Alps, hold very many of the 

 most distinct and beautiful Alpine plants of gardens, nowhere else 

 found. Dianthus neglcctus, the easily grown Primula marginata, 

 and the difficult and beautiful Primula Allioni, with Saxifraga 

 cochlear is and lantoscana, are among the plants which these 

 M Sea Alps " send us. 



Happy it is, for a " land-lubber " like myself, whose 

 enthusiasm would yield before a sea voyage as before scarcely 

 anything else, that, according to the better opinion, the flora of 

 the European Alps is the richest Alpine flora in the world, and 

 can be reached with but an hour's view (and " feel ") of the 

 hateful sea. And so one is half comforted to learn from Mr. 

 Whymper that the Alpine flora of the high Andes apparently 

 amounts to little, and one is content to take from the mountains 

 of Asia Minor whatever Mr. Whittall and others may contrive 

 to find and send us, now or presently. 



It remains, I hope, ere I die, to visit not only Styria and 

 Carinthia and Carniola, and perhaps Transylvania, all rich and 

 comparatively little explored, but the mountains of Bulgaria, the 

 home of Primula deorum (the " Primula of the gods "). Should I 

 ever return from that quest, whether minus my ears (left behind 

 with the brigands) or minus one of them, I trust that, as kindly 

 and patiently as you have done to-day, you will receive me and 

 hear from me the tale of how I found Primula deorum, and how 

 (if so it must be) I lost my ears in the process. 



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