Used as I am to the glories of the mountain flora, I am moved afresh to wonder each time I come intimately amongst them, and such a walk as I took this day, the 15th of June, is always a revelation. From the very start to the very finish there was a continuous procession of as amazingly rich and variedly coloured fields as, surely, any quarter of the globe would find it difficult to surpass. Sometimes the predominant colour was clear yellow, sometimes rich French blue, and not infrequently, when there was no such distinct predominance, the fields, especially when the sun was at the back of me, were as bewildering as, I imagine, would be fields flashing with a profusion of every known gem. Steep grassy slopes—in places almost perpendicular; long, hot stretches of grass-grown grit and rubble; rich ousy dips and hollows; undulating acres of wavy, feather-light meadows—all were decked alike in such kaleidoscopic abundance as forced me repeatedly to exclaim: “Oh that some of this loveliness could be translated as fields to England! If only England would try!”
Here I must beg leave to make a slight digression from the strictness of my subject. At one spot in the steep descent, just outside the tiny hamlet of Prassorny, I came upon a blaze of colour which stood out from all else—a pre-eminently arresting object in the landscape. It was, of all things, our old friend the scarlet Field Poppy! To come upon this inimitable flower spread in serried numbers over a large square of ground on a steep slope at an altitude of over 4,000 feet, was not a little surprising. Waving its battalions of fiery blossoms against the grey mist-filled valley beneath, with old sun and wind-stained châlets standing just beside, it was an irresistible motif for a painter. Seemingly as much at home as in any field in England, it appeared of even greater brilliance than with us—having, perhaps, caught something of the humour of the Gentian. That this Poppy can possibly intensify its hue over and above what we know it can achieve in the cornfields of the plains, will seem incredible—another instance of whale-talk on the writer’s part! And yet such is certainly the case—as, indeed, it is the case with many another lowland flower whose powers will allow it to climb. These poppies, here on this slope, stood witness for the fact; and so, too, did the other lowland flowers growing with them. There were Cornflowers and Larkspur of a blue more rich and radiant than it is even in the plains; and Viola tricolor, too, the Pansy of our own cornfields, was of a purple and yellow more deep than we are accustomed to have it. There was, also, the exquisite Adonis aestivalis of most vivid salmon-orange—its dainty blossoms standing like fire-flies against the rich blue masses of Salvia pratensis.i>.
Yet this was not a corn-patch (one can scarcely call them cornfields at this altitude, where they are mere terraces, many of them, like potato-patches, standing almost at an angle of 45°, carved from out the steep mountain-side by generations of thrifty peasants). In all probability, however, this particular terrace with its wealth of cornfield flowers had in quite recent years been sown with oats or rye. Anyway, it were well worth taking note of this Poppy’s presence hereabouts, if only because on the slope next door was the Bell-Gentian!
After this “parenthetic enthusiasm” over so homely an intruder, we will hie us back to the more usual denizens of these slopes and fields. Perhaps enough has already been said to show what a poor thing language is when in the presence of such splendours as June spreads before us in the Alps. Very few, if any, of the flowers were growing singly or even sparsely; they were usually in dense bright masses, or close and broad-spread legions, forming an “infinite floral broidery” stretching above, below, in front, and behind as far as eye could reach. What a difficult, almost impossible matter it has been to select for pictorial presentation such sections of this wealthy panorama as shall give some small idea of the whole, will readily be understood. Halting attempts, however, will be found in the pictures facing pages 32 and 48. And to supplement and reinforce these, there is, at the end of this chapter, a short list of the chief grass-land flowers met with during my walk. The rock-plants, and those liking the poorest of soil, though they certainly add an important quota to the brilliant prospect, have not been taken into account, as they fall somewhat outside our present purpose.
In his poem, “In Praise of June,” Leigh Hunt sings:
“May, by coming first in sight,
Half defrauds thee of thy right;
For her best is shared by thee
With a wealthier potency;