THE ALPINE GAEDEN AND THE FLOEA OF LE LAUTAEET. 309 



who has best served the cause of alpine botany and alpine gardens by 

 his pen, his words, and his actions." This Association strives to 

 check the commerce in plants torn up on the mountains, and recom- 

 mends culture by seed and rational acclimatization. The alpine 

 gardens created by its initiative cultivate the plants most asked for, 

 and proWde seeds of acclimatized plants at prices below those of com- 

 mercial dealers or even gratuitously. The plants which are dying out 

 find a refuge in these gardens. The same work is carried on by the 

 Societe austro-allemande pour la culture et la protection des plantes 

 alpines, founded in 1900 under the auspices of M. Coerevon. 



Part II. ■ - 



We may turn now to the subject of this article, the Alpine Garden 

 on the Col du Lautaret, Dauphine. Lautaret, said to mean " le haut- 

 arret," crowns the col leading from Bourg d'Oisans to Briancon, witn 

 a large hotel, which is open all the year round, at an altitude of 6,790 

 feet. 



As a botanical area, it includes the space bounded by the Trois 

 Eveches, the col and peaks of the Galibier, the Ponsonniere, the 

 course of the Petit-Tabuc, and of the Eomanche as far as Villard- 

 d'Arenes, and the central mass of Mont Combeynot. Within this 

 space there is every variety of botanical station: meadows, pastures 

 green or rocky hills, dry summits, sunny lawns, streams flowing in 

 all directions, marshes, valleys. The magnificence of its flora is 

 legendary ; it is the classical terra alpina of botanists. In 

 May, as the snow melts, Crocuses and Soldanellas spring up 

 everywhere, along wdth the etiolated shoots of Eanunculus, 

 Narcissus, and Anemone. These turn green almost as one watches 

 them, and soon the ground is covered with sweet-scented Narcissi 

 resembling a very delicate A^. poeticus — ? N. radiiflorus — its peculiarity 

 being that it is frequently of a distinct sulpbur colour; Anemones 

 (A. alpina with very few of A. sulphurea, A. narcissiflora and 

 A. vemalis in abundance, more rarely A. haldensis); orchids (0. macu- 

 lata, ' 0. samhucina, 0. globosa, and the delicious Nigritella angusti- 

 folia); Myosotis; Gentians {G. alpi^ia [acaulis] v. Kochiana, G. bavarica 

 [or, as I was told, aestiva], and less frequently G. verna); Primula 

 farinosa and Ranunculus pyrenaeus, with a wealth of charming Andro- 

 saces (A. ohtusifolia, A. caryiea, and another much disputed form not 

 unlike septentrionalis, said to be a hybrid of carnea and ohtusifolia and 

 to have lately received the name of Brianconis) ; Drabas (D. aizo'ides and 

 D. cuspidata), and lastly the brilliant little yellow flower which has so 

 many synonyms, Aretia Vitaliana, Androsace Vitaliana, Douglasia 

 Vitaliana, Gregoria Vitalia^ia, Primula Vitaliayial Higher up are 

 Lloydia serotina, Primula graveolens, and P. viscosa; along the 

 Eomanche, St. Bruno Lilies, Aquilegia alpina, Atragene alpina (the 

 violet "clematis"), and many others. Eritrichium nanuni lurks 

 among the boulders, fallen, it is supposed, from higher levels. The 



