But here we must conclude a dissertation which threatens to become a rhapsody. It is difficult, however, to treat of such a theme, and to follow up all its strange and startling suggestions, in sober prose.
The Alpine Flora.
The Alpine Flora, of which in a preceding section we have given a very imperfect sketch, has been examined with loving minuteness by Messrs Elijah Walton and T. G. Bonney; and other united results of pen and pencil have been placed before the public in a handsome volume entitled "Flowers from the Upper Alps, with Glimpses of their Homes." A somewhat similar subject has been treated with much delicacy of feeling and fervour of description by the Rev. Hugh Macmillan, in his "Holidays in High Lands."
Among the Alpine plants sketched and described by Messrs Walton and Bonney are the beautiful Lychnis, a close relative of our corn-cockle and garden pink, and so called, says Gerard, the quaint old botanist, because it is a "light-giving flower." He also met with immense breadths of violet pansies,—"that's for thoughts," says Ophelia,—covering the sloping pasture-grounds of the Col d'Autune, and blending with rose and star gentians, soldanellas, primulas, and anemones. The pink blossoms and bare stem of the house leek is found "among the blocks tumbled down from the ice-streams, and its sparkling clusters seem to glow with a richer hue on the stony ruin which has shattered the pine, and crushed the life even out of the rhododendron."
In the Glarus Alps the odorous crimson tufts of the Kammblume are discovered in a profusion which rejoices and astonishes the traveller. The yellow-blossomed ragwort spreads its stem over the rugged mountain-sides in every Alpine district. But next in fame and beauty to the gentians,—which is, par excellence, the mountain-flower,—must be placed the edelwein, celebrated by Kobele and other famous poets, and growing in almost every part of the Alps from Dauphiné to the Dolomites.
For further details respecting a most interesting branch of botany, we refer the reader to the two works already named, and he will find that the barrenest, stoniest slope of the Alpine rocks, the bleak recesses where the ice river has its origin, and the rugged ledge where the pitiless winds seem to expend their wildest fury, have their objects of grace and beauty,—their gentle and ever-welcome evidence of the Divine love, the Divine wisdom, and the Divine power, as exercised for the delight of man in the remotest wildernesses of the earth. The love of God is everywhere.
INDEX.
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