
WHAT IS AN ALPINE? 
Asa Gray, one of the most eminent American botanists and a very 
prolific writer, in a letter to J. D. Hooker, himself a famous English 
botanist and plant explorer, answers this question for us: ‘‘What do I 
call an alpine plant? Why, one that has its habitat above the limits of 
trees—mainly—though it may run down along lower streams. But in a 
dry region, where forest has no fair chance, we might need to mend the 
definition.” 
And again, Captain Kingdon Ward, the famous English collector and 
explorer and writer gives his ideas in “The Romance of Gardening,” 
“An alpine is a plant which grows above the tree line, that is, the alti- 
tude at which trees normally grow. The tree line may be at sea level, 
or there may be no growth at all, as in the Siberian tundra, which is 
almost equivalent to an alpine region at sea-level. So far as alpine plants 
are concerned, altitude is merely a rough substitute for latitude; in low 
latitudes alpines ascend to high altitudes and vice-versa.” 
Now a rock garden plant—that is something else again! We have 
fallen into the way of bringing into our rock gardens plants from any- 
where at all that will adorm our rocks and crannies, our little moors 
and meadows and in turn be enhanced to a certain degree by these situa- 
tions and the associations they find there. A large rock garden or one 
that has a great deal of height will accommodate happily a far greater 
range of plants as to size and kind than a small one will. 
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