Eyes are not everything, ears are not everything, tongues are not everything. Neither are eyes, ears, and tongues together everything. There is sight without eyes, hearing without ears, and speech without tongues. Science can prove it, when Science chooses. For there is sense behind our senses—sense as unerring as any declared by our senses. I have, indeed, a shrewd suspicion that we may be poor beside the ant; and I have a somewhat uncomfortable feeling that in some ways we may be paupers beside poor, blind Colchicum autumnale.
Young plants of VERATRUM ALBUM, together with SALVIA PRATENSIS, PHYTEUMA BETONICÆFOLIUM, P. ORBICULARE, the white and the yellow Euphrasia, and the yellow Clover, drawn on the spot at the beginning of July.
Have you ever stayed for autumn in the Alps? Have you seen the Bilberry glowing among the stolid Rhododendron; the Eglantine and Berberis bowing beneath the weight of their fiery fruit; the long-tailed and the crested titmouse hunting in tuneful bands from sombre Pine to yellowing Larch; the massed companies of piping choughs surveying for food-stuff upon the open slopes; and the dark grey or russet viper basking boldly on the sun-baked path? Have you known the mists and mystery that soften the great and gorgeous carnival with which Nature celebrates the closing of the round of her live seasons? If you have, then you will, I know, bear witness with me to the fullness of this season’s allure; you will agree that everything around you is in rich accord to sing a glad, gay pæan ere taking a meed of well-earned repose; and you will admit that, as an item in this splendid spectacle, nothing is more important, more appropriate, than Colchicum autumnale and alpinum.
Among the most delightful of life’s moments are many of life’s surprises, and in the floral world few surprises can supply more delightful moments than the unexpected advent of this “Crocus”
“... fashioned in the secret mint of things
And bidden to be here.”
Spring tries hard to repeat herself in the two Meadow Saffrons. One day