ALPINE PLANTS AND THEIR TREATMENT. 



125 



the sun, whilst those sown with Lycopods and Ferns are placed 

 in a warm house, where they must be put in a dark position. 



For the Pyrolaceae, Orchids, Parnassia, and Rhinanthacea) 

 Mr. Moe recommends another system. The pots which are to 

 contain the seeds are filled with a compost of one part peat, one 

 of forest soil, and one of the remains of pinewood or rotten fir, to 

 which is added a little chopped moss and dry fir needles. This 

 compost is firmly pressed into the pots, and small Mosses 

 (Dicranum, Bryum argcnteum, Mnium, &c.) are then planted in 

 it, and in this moss the seeds in question are sown. The pots 

 are then placed in a case containing water, so that the soil may 

 be continually and regularly moist. The case containing the 

 pots is then placed for fifteen days in a frame heated and shaded 

 in a uniform manner, and kept hermetically closed during the 

 whole time. And in this way Mr. Moe has obtained excellent 

 results. 



Many of the berries like Empetrum, Arctostaphylos, and 

 Vaccinium are very difficult to raise from seed. I noticed that 

 it is only in those parts of the Alps where partridges and other 

 berry-eating birds are common that these plants can be found as 

 seedlings in any quantity, and so during the last eighteen months 

 I have tried sowing in Geneva and at the Linnea (the Linnea is 

 a botanic garden situated in the Alps of Canton Valais, near to 

 the St. Bernard Hospice, at 5,000 feet elevation) seeds of Arcto- 

 staphylos and Empetrum eaten and digested by a blackbird, and 

 some which were not so digested, but as yet I have arrived 

 at no definite conclusion, because none of them have as yet 

 come up, and I am still waiting for results. 



When the seeds have germinated, and the plants begin to 

 get strength, they must be pricked out in pans or planted singly 

 in little pots. Some kinds, as Rhododendrons, Daphne, Adonis, 

 Ranunculus, Gentiana purpurea, G. lutea, G. punctata, G.pan- 

 nonica, G. asclepiadea, Paeonias, some of the Androsaces, Silcna 

 acaulis, &c, are very slow to grow, and take a very long time to 

 bloom. Others, as Papavers, Thlaspi, Linaria alpina, L.pctrcea, 

 Arabis, &c, frequently blossom in the first year. 



The best season for the collection of seeds in the Alpine 

 regions is the month of September, as at that time one can still 

 recognise the species to which the seed belongs, and. as it is 

 equally the best time for taking up the plants we desire to trans- 



