IV.
At the summit grow the mosses. Battered by the wind, dried by the sun, they lose the fresh green tint they wear in the valleys and on the brink of the springs. They are reddened with tawny hues, and their smooth filaments have the reflexes of a wolf’s fur. Others, yellowed and pale, cover with their sickly colors the bleeding crevices. Then there are gray ones, almost white, which grow like remnants of hair upon the bald rocks. Far away, upon the back of the mountain, all these tints are mingled, and the shaded fur emits a wild gleam.
The last growths are reddish crusts, stuck to the walls of rock, seeming to form part of the stone, and which you might take, not for a plant, but for a scurf. Cold, dryness, and the height have by degrees transformed or killed vegetation.