SOME BOOKS ON ROCK-GARDENING AND ALPINE PLANTS. 395 



of Monte B ildo and the plants gathered on the mountain, and also 

 on the road from Verona, is the best known early account of a botanical 

 journey in search of Alpine plants. The dedicatory letter to Clusius is 

 dated 1595, and the book was published in quarto form at Verona in that 

 year, but is better known in the folio edition included in the Plantin 

 Press edition of Clusius' " Rariorum Plantarum Historia " * of 1601. 

 The quotations in Linnaeus' " Species Plantarum " refer to this edition. 

 The list contains a great number of plants, and full descriptions and 

 beautiful woodcuts are given of sixteen of them, and among them are 

 Phyteuma comosum, Trifolium alpinum, Ranunculus anemonifolius, 

 Silene acaulis, and Geranium argenteiim. 



" Historia naturalis Helvetiae curiosa," by John Jacob Wagner 

 (1680), contains a section dealing with plants, which is divided into 

 two parts, the first on trees, and the second on sub-shrubs and Alpine 

 plants. But, as Haller points out in the preface to his book, Wagner's 

 list contains scarcely anything beyond names selected from Bauhin, 

 and some absurd species that no one has seen growing wild in Switzer- 

 land, such as Melissa cilraria. But one might expect something of 

 the sort in a book that includes a chapter on Dragons, and gravely 

 divides them into winged and wingless, with a subdivision of the last 

 class into those with feet and those that are footless. Haller 's " Enu- 

 meratio Methodica Stirpium Helvetiae indigenarum " (1742) is a fine 

 folio and contains twenty-four copper-plate engravings, many of 

 which figure Alpines. Saxi/raga Hir cuius, Androsace imbricata, and 

 Viola calcarata are easily recognized among them. Allioni's " Flora 

 Pedemontana " (1785) is another important work in three volumes 

 folio, with ninety-two fine copper-plate engravings and good figures of 

 Primula viscosa, Campanula Allionii, Ononis cenisia, Viola valderia, 

 V. cenisia, and V. nummular if oli a. 



I think the first book entirely devoted to Alpine plants must be 

 one printed at Upsala, 1756, entitled " Flora Alpina," which appears 

 to be a thesis for a degree written by a student under Linnaeus, Nils 

 N. Amann, but quoted by Pritzel among Linnaeus' works. In it 

 Alps are defined as mountains so high that no trees can grow erect on 

 them, and among a list of Alps those of Britain are enumerated 

 thus : "In Wallia Snowdon et Caderidris, in Jorckschire, Ingleborugh, 

 Hardknor, nec non in Arronia, Westmorlandia, ut & in Scotia, Betack, 

 atque in Hibernia Mangarton, Sligo." We are told that it is not for 

 just anyone to gain a knowledge of Alpine plants, as they are among the 

 rarest, since it is not permitted to behold them without great trouble, 

 journeying on foot through most arduous, rough, and uneven places, in 

 tracts devoid of houses, continually exposed to tempestuous winds, 

 snow, storm clouds, damp, hunger, fatigue, &c. Besides, also, they are 

 rare, because they are scarcely to be met with in gardens ; in fact their 

 management would not be known to many gardeners, for it is almost 

 impossible to propagate and keep them in the warmer regions. Then 

 follows a list of those who have written about the Alpine plants of 

 various countries, and lastly lists of plants arranged on the Linnean 



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