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THE FLOWER-FIELDS OF
ALPINE SWITZERLAND
[Illustration: _CALTHA PALUSTRIS_ and _PRIMULA FARINOSA_ on the upper
fields of Champex towards the end of May. ]
THE FLOWER-FIELDS OF
ALPINE SWITZERLAND
AN APPRECIATION AND A PLEA
PAINTED AND WRITTEN
BY
G. FLEMWELL
AUTHOR OF “ALPINE FLOWERS AND GARDENS”
“Into the fieldes did he goe, which then faire _Flora_ bedecked,
With redolent blossoms, O how grateful to the sences.”
FRANCIS SABIE, _Pan’s Pipe_.
WITH TWENTY-SIX REPRODUCTIONS
OF WATER-COLOUR DRAWINGS
London :: HUTCHINSON & CO.
Paternoster Row :: :: :: 1911
TO
MADEMOISELLE MARTHE DEDIE
AND ALL AT
“LA COMBE,” ROLLE (VAUD)
PREFACE
Last year Mr. G. Flemwell gave us a very beautiful volume upon the
Alpine Flora, and it has met with well-deserved success. But the
author is not yet satisfied. He thinks to do better, and would now
make known other pictures—those of Alpine fields, especially during
the spring months.
Springtime in our Alps is certainly the most beautiful moment of
the year, and the months of May and June, even to the middle of
July, are the most brilliant of all. It is a season which, up to
the present, we have rather considered as reserved for us Swiss,
who do not much like that which is somewhat irreverently called
_l’industrie des étrangers_, and perhaps we shall not be altogether
enchanted to find that the author _à la mode_ is about to draw the
veil from our secrets, open the lock-gates of our most sacred joys
to the international flood, and sound the clarion to make known,
_urbe et orbi_, the springtime glory of our fields. With this one
little reservation to calm the egotistical anxiety which is in me (Mr.
Flemwell, who is my colleague in the Swiss Alpine Club, knows too well
our national character not to understand the spirit in which we make
certain reservations with regard to this invasion of our mountains by
the cosmopolitan crowd), I wish to thank the author, and to compliment
him upon this fresh monument which he raises to the glory of our
flowers.
He here presents them under a different aspect, and shows us the
Alpine field, the meadow, the great green slope as they transform
themselves in springtime. He sings of this rebirth with his poet-soul,
and presents it in pictures which are so many hymns to the glory of
the Creator. And he is justified in this, for nothing in the world
is more marvellous than the re-flowering of Alpine fields in May
and June. I have seen it in the little _vallons_ of Fully and of
Tourtemagne in Valais, in the fields of Anzeindaz and of Taveyannaz
(Canton de Vaud), at the summit of the Gemmi and on the Oberalp in
the Grisons; I have seen the flowering spring in the Bernese Oberland
and on the Utli (Zurich), in the _vallons_ of Savoie and in those
of Dauphiné; I have seen the metamorphosis of the Val de Bagnes and
of the Bavarian plain, the transformation of the marvellous valleys
of Piémont and of the elevated valley of Aosta. But I have never
seen anything more beautiful or more solemn than spring in the Jura
Mountains of Vaud and Neuchatel, with their fields of _Anemone alpina_
and _narcissiflora_, when immense areas disappeared under a deep azure
veil of _Gentiana verna_ or of the darker _Gentiana Clusii_, and
when the landscape is animated by myriads of _Viola biflora_ or of
Soldanella. In reading what Mr. Flemwell has written, my spirit floats
further afield even than this—to the Val del Faene, which reposes near
to the Bernina, and I see over again a picture that no painter, not
even our author, could render: the snow, in retiring to the heights,
gave place to a carpet of violet, blue, lilac, yellow, or bright pink,
according as it was composed of either _Soldanella pusilla_, of long,
narrow, pendent bells, which flowered in thousands and millions upon
slopes still brown from the rigours of winter, or _Gentiana verna_,
or _Primula integrifolia_, whose dense masses were covered with
their lovely blossoms, or _Gagea Liotardi_, whose brilliant yellow
stars shone on all sides in the sun, or _Primula hirsuta_. All these
separate masses formed together a truly enchanting picture, which
remained unadmired by strangers—since these had not yet arrived—and
which I was happy and proud to salute under the sky of the Grisons.
Our author seems to have a predilection for the blue flower of
_Gentiana verna_, and I thank him for all he says of my favourite.
When, at the age of ten years, I saw it for the first time, carpeting
the fields of the Jura in Vaud, my child’s soul was so enthusiastic
over it that there were fears I should make myself ill. This
impression, which dates from 1864, is still as fresh in my memory as
if it were of yesterday. Blue, true blue, is so rare in Nature that
Alphonse Karr could cite but five or six flowers that were really so:
the Gentian, the Comellina, several Delphiniums, the Cornflower, and
the Forget-me-not. The blue of the Gentian is certainly the most
superb and velvety, especially that of _Gentiana bavarica_. A group
of _Gentiana verna_, _brachyphylla_, and _bavarica_ which I exhibited
at the Temple Show in London in May 1910, and which was a very modest
one, it having suffered during the long voyage from Floraire to
London, was greatly admired, and did not cease to attract the regard
of all flower-lovers. Blue is so scarce, every one said, that it is
good to feast one’s eyes upon it when one meets with it!
The practical side of this volume resides in the information it
offers to lovers of Alpine flowers in England. One readily believes
that, in order to cultivate these mountain plants, big surroundings
are necessary: a great collection of rocks, as in the giant Alpine
garden of Friar Park. We have proved in our garden of Floraire—where
the public is willingly admitted, and which flower-lovers are invited
to visit—that mountain plants can be cultivated without rockwork,
and that it is even important, if one wishes to give an artistic and
natural aspect to the garden, not to be too prodigal of rock and
stone. Much verdure is essential, it is necessary to have a frame
for the picture, and that frame can only be obtained by creating the
Alpine field. One day at Friar Park, Sir Frank Crisp, the creator
of this beautiful _alpinum_, taking me aside and making me walk
around with him, showed me a vast, empty field which stretched away
to the north of the Matterhorn, and said: “It is here that I wish
to establish a Swiss field to soften the too rocky aspect of the
garden and to give it a fitting frame.” And since then I am unable to
conceive that there was ever a time when the Alpine garden at Friar
Park had not its setting of Alpine fields. There was no idea of making
such a thing when the garden was begun; but once the rockwork was
finished the rest imposed itself. One needs the flower-filled field,
_l’alpe en fête_, by the side of the grey rocks.
This is why, in our horticultural establishment at Floraire, we make
constant efforts to reproduce expanses of Narcissi, Columbines,
Gentians, Daphnes, Primulas, etc., grouped in masses as we have seen
them in nature, and as Mr. Flemwell gives them in his book.
Herein lies the great utility of this volume, and the reason why it
will be consulted with pleasure by gardeners as well as by alpinists
and lovers of nature generally.
HENRY CORREVON.
FLORAIRE, NEAR GENEVA,
_January 2, 1911_.
CONTENTS
PART I
_AN APPRECIATION_
CHAPTER PAGE
I. OF OUR ENTHUSIASM FOR “ALPINES” 3
II. ALPINE FLOWER-FIELDS 12
III. THE MAY FIELDS 21
IV. THE VERNAL GENTIAN 35
V. IN STORM AND SHINE 48
VI. THE JUNE MEADOWS 64
VII. ON FLORAL ATTRACTIVENESS AND COLOUR 86
VIII. THE RHODODENDRON 102
IX. THE JULY FIELDS 114
X. THE AUTUMN CROCUS 134
PART II
_A PLEA_
XI. ALPINE FIELDS FOR ENGLAND 149
XII. SOME WAYS AND MEANS 162
L’ENVOI 179
INDEX 189
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
1. _Caltha palustris_ and _Primula farinosa_ on the
upper fields of Champex towards the end of May _Frontispiece_
PAGE
2. _Gentiana verna_ and _Primula farinosa_ on the lower fields of
Champex towards the end of May, with part of the _massif_
of Saleinaz in the background 2
3. Lac Champex in cloudland at the end of May; _Caltha palustris_
and _Primula farinosa_ by the water-edge 8
4. The upper fields of Champex early in June, with the Grand
Combin in the distance 13
5. _Trollius europæus_, the Globe Flower, on the cloud-swept
fields in early June 17
6. _Anemone sulphurea_ and _Viola calcarata_ in the Val d’Arpette
in June 25
7. Early-June fields beyond Praz de Fort in the Val Ferret,
backed by the Groupe du Grand Saint-Bernard et du Grand
Golliaz 32
8. The Paradise Lily (_Paradisia Liliastrum_) near the Glacier de
Trient about the middle of June 40
9. June meadows of Salvia, Lychnis, etc., in the Val Ferret,
just before arriving at the village of Praz de Fort 48
10. Field of _Campanula rhomboidalis_ on the Col de la Forclaz
about the beginning of July 57
11. In the early-July fields at Champex 65
12. Evening among the fields of pink Bistort at Lac Champex;
sunset-glow on the Grand Combin, July 73
13. Haymaking at Champex in the middle of July 81
14. The Autumn Crocus in the fields near the village of Trient,
with the Aiguille du Tour in the background, September 88
15. _Anemone sulphurea_ and _Gentiana excisa_ painted directly in
the fields at the end of May 97
16. _Primula farinosa_, _Gentiana verna_, Micheli’s Daisy,
_Bartsia alpina_, _Polygala alpina_, and the two Pinguiculas
or Butterworts, painted directly in the fields at the end
of May 105
17. _Gentiana verna_, the type-plant, and some of its forms 113
18. _Geranium sylvaticum_, _Potentilla rupestris_, _Centaurea
montana_, the pink Bistort, the little Alpine Bistort,
painted on the spot in the fields at the beginning of July 122
19. _Paradisia Liliastrum_, the Paradise or St. Bruno’s Lily 129
20. _Rosa alpina_, the thornless Alpine Eglantine 136
21. 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 144
22. Arnica, the Brown Gentian (_G. purpurea_), _Campanula
barbata_, and the fiery little _Hieracium aurantiacum_,
painted from life in the fields towards the middle of July 152
23. The tall yellow _Hypochœris uniflora_, _Centaurea uniflora_,
the Golden Hawkweed (_Crepis aurea_) drawn from life in the
July fields 160
24. _Gentiana campestris_ and _Gentiana bavarica_ 169
25. _Astrantia major_, _A. minor_, and the Apollo butterfly 176
26. The Willow Gentian (_G. asclepiadea_) and the Alpine Cotton
Grass (_Eriophorum Scheuchzeri_) 182
PART I
_AN APPRECIATION_
“Ensnared with flowers, I fall on grass.”
ANDREW MARVELL.
[Illustration: _GENTIANA VERNA_ and _PRIMULA FARINOSA_ on the lower
fields of Champex towards the end of May, with part of the _MASSIF_ of
Saleinaz in the background. ]
CHAPTER I
OF OUR ENTHUSIASM FOR “ALPINES”
“We are here dealing with one of the strongest intellectual
impulses of rational beings. Animals, as a rule, trouble
themselves but little about anything unless they want either
to eat it or to run away from it. Interest in, and wonder at,
the works of nature and of the doings of man are products of
civilisation, and excite emotions which do not diminish, but
increase with increasing knowledge and cultivation. Feed them and
they grow; minister to them and they will greatly multiply.”—THE
RT. HON. A. J. BALFOUR, _in his Address as Lord Rector of St.
Andrews University, December 10, 1887_.
Some excuse—or rather, some explanation—seems to be needed for daring
to present yet another book upon the Alpine Flora of Switzerland. So
formidable is the array of such books already, and so persistently do
additions appear, that it is not without diffidence that I venture
to swell the numbers, and, incidentally, help to fill the new
subterranean chamber of the Bodleian.
With the author of “Du Vrai, Du Beau, et Du Bien,” I feel that “Moins
la musique fait de bruit et plus elle touche”; I feel that reticence
rather than garrulity is at the base of well-being, and that, if the
best interests of the cult of Alpines be studied, any over-production
of books upon the subject should be avoided, otherwise we are likely
to be face to face with the danger of driving this particular section
of the plant-world within that zone of appreciation “over which hangs
the veil of familiarity.”
Few acts are more injudicious, more unkind, or more destructive than
that of overloading. “The last straw” will break the back of anything,
not alone of a camel. One who is mindful of this truth is in an
anxious position when he finds himself one of a thousand industrious
builders busily bent upon adding straw upon straw to the back of one
special subject.
It were a thousand pities if, for want of moderation, Alpines should
go the way Sweet Peas are possibly doomed to go—the way of all
overridden enthusiasms. Extravagant attention is no new menace to
the welfare of that we set out to admire and to cherish, and it were
pity of pities if, for lack of seemly restraint, the shy and lovely
denizens of the Alps should arrive at that place in our intimacy where
they will no longer be generally regarded with thoughtful respect and
intelligent wonder, but will be obliged to retire into the oblivion
which so much surrounds those things immediately and continuously
under our noses. For, of all plants, they merit to be of our abiding
treasures.
But just because we have come to the opinion that Alpines stand in
need of less “bush,” it does not necessarily follow that we must be
sparing of our attention. There is ample occasion for an extension
of honest, balanced intimacy. What we have to fear is an irrational
freak-enthusiasm similar to the seventeenth-century craze for Tulips—a
craze of which La Bruyère so trenchantly speaks in referring to an
acquaintance who was swept off his feet by the monstrous prevailing
wave. “God and Nature,” he says, “are not in his thoughts, for they
do not go beyond the bulb of his tulip, which he would not sell for a
thousand pounds, though he will give it you for nothing when tulips
are no longer in fashion, and carnations are all the rage. This
rational being, who has a soul and professes some religion, comes home
tired and half starved, but very pleased with his day’s work. He has
seen some tulips.” Now this was enthusiasm of a degree and kind which
could not possibly endure; reaction was bound to come. Of course, it
was an extreme instance of fashion run mad, and one of which Alpines
may never perhaps provoke a repetition. Yet we shall do well to see a
warning in it.
I think I hear enthusiastic lovers of Alpines protesting that there is
no fear whatever of such an eventuality for their gems, because these
latter are above all praises and attentions and cannot be overrated.
I fancy I hear the enthusiasts explaining that Alpines are not Sweet
Peas, or Tulips, or double Show Dahlias; that they occupy a place
apart, a place such as is occupied by the hot-house and greenhouse
Orchids, a place unique and unassailable. And these protestations may
quite possibly prove correct; I only say that, in view of precedents,
there lurks a tendency towards the danger named, and that it therefore
behoves all those who have the solid welfare of these plants at heart
to be on their guard, to discourage mere empty attentions, and to
do what is possible to direct enthusiasm into sound, intelligent
channels. “An ignorant worship is a poor substitute for a just
appreciation.” Aye, but it is often more than this; it is often a
dangerous one.
Already the admiration and attention meted out to Alpines is being
spoken of as a fashion, a rage, and a craze; and we know that there
is no smoke without fire. Certainly, the same language has been used
towards the enthusiasm shown for Orchids. But Orchids have nought
to fear from that degree of popularisation which impinges upon
vulgarisation. The prices they command and the expense attendant upon
their culture afford them important protection—a protection which
Alpines do not possess to anything like the same extent.
Of course, the fate in store for Alpines in England is not of so
inevitable a nature as that awaiting Japanese gardening; for in
this latter “craze” there is an element scarcely present in Alpine
gardening. We can more or less fathom the spirit of Alpine gardening
and are therefore quite able to construct something that shall be more
or less intelligent and true; but can we say as much for ourselves
with regard to Japanese gardening? I think not. I think that largely
it is, and must remain, a sealed book to us. Japanese gardening, as
Miss Du Cane very truly points out in her Preface to “The Flowers and
Gardens of Japan,” is “the most complicated form of gardening in the
world.” Who in England will master the “seven schools” and absorb all
the philosophy and subtle doctrine which governs them? Who in England
will bring himself to see a rock, a pool, a bush as the Japanese
gardener sees them, as, indeed, the Japanese people in general see
them? The spirit of Japanese gardening is as fundamentally different
from the spirit of English gardening as that of Japanese art is from
English art. What poor, spiritless results we have when English art
assumes the guise of Japanese art! It is imitation limping leagues
behind its model. And it is this because it is unthought, unfelt,
unrealized.
Strikingly individual, the Japanese outlook is much more impersonal
than is ours. Needs must that we be born into the traditions of such a
race to comprehend and feel as it does about Nature. A Japanese must
have his rocks, streams, trees proportioned to his tea or dwelling
house and bearing mystic religious significance. Such particular
strictness is the product of ages of upbringing. A few years, a
generation or two could not produce in us the reasoned nicety of this
phase of appreciation; still less the reading of some book or the
visit to some garden built by Japanese hands. The spirit of a race is
of far longer weaving; one summer does not make a butterfly;
[Illustration: LAC CHAMPEX in cloudland at the end of May; _CALTHA
PALUSTRIS_ and _PRIMULA FARINOSA_ by the water edge. ]
“... think of all
The suns that go to make one speedwell blue.”
To us a tiny chalet is quite well placed amid stupendous cliffs and
huge, tumbled boulders, and is fit example to follow, if only we
are able to do so. In Alpine gardening we feel no need to study the
size of our rocks in relation to our summer-house, or place them so
that they express some high philosophic or mystic principle. We have
no cult beyond Nature’s own cult in this matter. We see, and we are
content to see, that Nature has no nice plan and yet is invariably
admirable; we see, and we are content to see, that if man, as in
Switzerland, chooses to plant his insignificant dwelling in the midst
of great, disorderly rocks and crowded acres of brilliant blossoms, it
is romantic garden enough and worthy of as close imitation as possible.
With the Japanese, gardening is perhaps more a deeply æsthetic culture
than it is the culture of plants. Where we are bald, unemotional,
“scientific” gardeners, they will soar high into the clouds of
philosophic mysticism. Truer children of the Cosmos than we Western
materialists, they walk in their gardens as in some religious rite.
We, too, no doubt, are often dreamers; we, too, are often wont to
find in our gardens expression for our searching inner-consciousness;
but how different are our methods, how different the spirit we wish to
express.
The most, therefore, we can accomplish in Japanese modes of gardening
is to ape them; and of this, because of its emptiness, we shall very
soon tire. The things which are most enduring are the things honestly
felt and thought; for the expression of the true self reaches out
nearest to satisfaction. Unless, then, we are apes in more than
ancestry, Japanese gardening can have no long life among us. Alpine
gardening is far more akin to our natural or hereditary instincts;
it holds for us the possibility of an easier and more honest
appreciation. And it is just here, in this very fact, where lies much
of the danger which may overtake and smother the immense and growing
enthusiasm with which Alpines are meeting.
* * * * *
How best, then, to direct and build up this enthusiasm into something
substantial, something that shall secure for Alpines a lasting place
in our affections? The answer is in another question: What better than
a larger, more comprehensive appeal to Alpine nature; what better than
a more thorough translation of Alpine circumstance to our grounds and
gardens?
Now, to this end we must look around us in the Alps to find that
element in plant-life which we have hitherto neglected; and if we
do this, our eyes must undoubtedly alight upon the fields. Hitherto
these have been a greatly neglected quantity with us when planning
our Alpine gardens, and their possibilities have been almost
entirely overlooked in respect of our home-lands. Why should we not
make more pronounced attempts to create such meadows, either as
befitting adjuncts to our rock works or as embellishments to our
parks? I venture to think that such an extension and direction of our
enthusiasm would add much sterling popularity to that already acquired
by Alpines in our midst, besides doing far greater justice to many
of their number. I venture to think, also, that it would add much to
the joy and health of home-life. These thoughts, therefore, shall be
developed and examined as we push forward with this volume, first of
all making a careful study of the fields on the spot, and marking
their “moods and tenses.”