Yes; from the lichen, Umbilicaria virginis, the furthest outpost of vegetable life as it clings to the Jungfrau’s awful rocks at an altitude of 13,000 feet, to the yellow Primrose of the woods and meadows of the plains, there is no plant of Alpland that is so precious, so rare in its very abundance as Gentiana verna. Nor is there another Alpine that can make so wide and so certain an appeal. Spread broadcast and alone upon the awakening turf of mountain slope and meadow, it captivates the instant attention of even the merest passer-by. And if amongst its abounding azure there happens, as will often be the case, a vigorous admixture of healthy rose and yellow—the rose of the Mealy or Bird’s-eye Primula, the yellow of the Sulphur Anemone and Marsh Marigold—then this were a scene to “make the pomp of emperors ridiculous”; a scene of subtly true magnificence, of perfectly balanced delight.
See the Vernal Gentian as it lies thus bountifully set, a radiant blue carpet of heavenly intensity, backed majestically by winter’s receding snows on mighty glacier and stupendous peak; note its myriad white-eyed, cœrulean blossoms over which hover with tireless wing its faithful, eager friends, the humming-bird and bee hawk-moths—the very picture of security and peace amid a scene of awful, threatening grandeur. Listen—listen, the while, to the thunder coming from “the vexed paths of the avalanches”; listen to the sound of falling rock and pine, and mark the great air-tossed cloud of powdered snow; listen to the alarm-cry of the speckled mountain-jay, and to the shriek-like warning of the marmot; then tell me if there is any other flower that could so well play the part of hope-inspiring herald to a world as harassed as is that of the Alps in the season that surrounds the winter?
CHAPTER V
IN STORM AND SHINE
“Well roars the storm to those that hear
A deeper voice across the storm.”