In every land the flora of the lowest region of the mountains is virtually the same as that of the adjacent plains, and it is only at an elevation of 300 feet that we discern a positive change of aspect. In temperate Europe, the Normandy fir and the Epicea begin to form, at that altitude, forests of considerable extent. These trees are from 120 to 150 feet in height, with a pyramidal configuration, sombre foliage, and drooping boughs, and whose bark takes to itself a clothing of various lichens (notably Usneas), the long filaments, branchy and yellowish, clinging to the branches of the most aged individuals. In the shadow of these resinous trees thrive the honeysuckle, the rose, the wild raspberry. At the base of the senile trunks are developed the crawling or climbing stems, ever verdurous, of various lycopodiums. In rocky localities the great yellow gentian unfolds its long spikes of golden flowers, in company with the elegant martagon, whose yellow-spotted red corollas are rolled up turban-wise. At a higher level, between 4500 and 6000 feet, the cembro pine, rare enough in France and England, more common in the mountains of Central Europe, and the larch, whose leaves fall every winter, are the last representatives of the true arborescent Flora.
Still continuing our ascent, we meet now with nothing but an herbaceous vegetation. Here and there only, in turfy places and abrupt ravines, a few birches and some dwarf willows display themselves, scarcely taller than the herbs which surround them. It is in the rocky hollows also that the oleanders or ferruginous rhododendrons vegetate, sole representatives in Europe of a genus which among the Asiatic mountains numbers several species. The Flora of the Alpine prairies is, moreover, extremely varied. The Gramineæ dominate therein, but associated with other families which enamel with the most brilliant colours the bright green carpet of those cold regions; the bright yellow or orange of the Compositæ; the blue of the Phyteumas, of the Larkspurs, and the Campanulas; the rose of the Carnations and the Centaureas; the intense purple of the Ranunculuses (Nigritellæ). In the most arid localities we admire the azure flowers of the little Gentianellas and the white blossoms of the Saxifrages; their presence, under such conditions, filling our souls with wonder, and stimulating our hearts to praise their divine Creator.
“And with childlike, credulous affection,
We behold their tender buds expand—
Emblems of our own great resurrection,
Emblems of the bright and better land.”[203]
Some of the plants which enrich the lofty slopes of the European mountains are endowed with an agreeable aromatic odour, and with keen stimulating properties. Such are the Artemisias and the Achilleæ. To the former of these families belongs the Artemisia glacialis, which the mountaineers consider an universal panacea, and which enters into the composition of the famous liqueur of the Chartreux.
On the threshold of the eternal snows, under the influence of the icy breezes, vegetation grows rarer and yet rarer, until it is reduced to a few species which compensate for their insignificance by their beauty. Such are the Campanula of Allioni, with its graceful bells of blue; the delicate Saxifraga, whose rosy flowers also expose their beauties on the frost-bound shores of Spitzbergen; the Soldanella of the Alps; the Ranunculus of the Glaciers; numerous Androsellæ, some of which do not exceed a third of an inch in height; finally, on the extreme border, and straggling even on the moraines of the Glaciers, where no other plant can live, the little Myosotis, which grows in small tufts covered with white down, and starred with delicate blue flowers. At a still higher level we find only a few lichens relieving the monotonous surface of the rocks; and sometimes, flourishing under unknown circumstances, the Protococcus nivalis, whose red globules communicate to the snow a blood-red tint.
The Mountain Flora will offer us, in other parts of the globe, the same series of diminution, commencing with the groups which people the low lands of each geographical zone, and terminating with those which, at the level of the sea, are met with only in the Frozen Zone. Some mountain-chains, however, possess genera or species exclusively belonging to them. It is on the ridges of Atlas and Lebanon, at an elevation of 3500 or 5400 feet, that the majestic cedars spread their umbrageous branches. The cedars of Atlas attain a stature of 120 to 140 feet, and their trunk measures, at the base, from a yard to a yard and a half in diameter. “When young,” says M. Charles Martins,[204] “they have a pyramidal form; but when they soar above their neighbours, or above the rock which protects them, there comes a sudden storm, a flash of lightning, or an insect pierces their terminal shoot, and deprives them of their shapely spire; the tree is discrowned; then the branches spread horizontally in terraces or layers of verdure, one upon another, screening the sky from the gaze of the traveller, who presses forward in a sort of twilight under these vaults impenetrable to the solar rays. From an elevated point of the mountain still more majestic is the spectacle. The horizontal surfaces resemble lawns of the deepest green, or of a glaucous colour like that of water, upon which are sprinkled cones of a violet hue; the eye plunges into an abyss of greenery in whose depth mutters an invisible torrent.”