THE RHODODENDRON
“Wonderful, hidden things wait near, I know,
Perchance fulfilment of our noblest aim,
Or marvels that would set the heart aflame,
Which an obscure and mystic sense might show—
Snatching us—in a moment—to the glow
Beyond yon filmy barrier without name
That no eye pierceth!”
FANNY ELIZABETH SIDEBOTTOM, _A Spiritual Sense_.
According to authority, there are about 186 species of Rhododendron in
the world. The greatest number of varieties inhabit India and China,
and they are important plants in the Caucasus, where often—as with
_Rhododendron ponticum_—they cover the entire side of a mountain.
In Switzerland there are but two varieties, _R. ferrugineum_ and
_R. hirsutum_, and they are to the Swiss Alps what the Heather is
to the Scottish mountains (with, however, this difference—the Alps
have also the Heather). They clothe the open mountain-side with a
deep evergreen growth, invading the lichen-scored rocks and even
the pine-forests, and robing themselves, from mid-June to mid-July,
in such rosy-red attire as fascinates even the accustomed peasant,
causing him almost as much delight as they cause the stranger. Indeed,
their flowering is a masterpiece of Nature’s art, and few things are
more fitting the sun’s ascendency and the advent of cowbells upon the
pastures. Wherever on the fields there is a rock, there shines the
rosy shrub against the grey mass, and the steep slopes glint and glow
as they will do in the autumn when the Bilberry and other groundlings
catch afire. I have met visitors in disappointment at the smallness
of the blossoms, and inquiring where the large-flowered forms of our
gardens might be found. Certainly, these plants are not those of the
Himalaya, but I warrant they can boast a glory all their own—one
inspired by its particular circumstance and surroundings, and vying in
that respect with the glory of the kinsfolk of India or of the Azalea
in Afghanistan. Abundance rather than size is the keynote of this
present splendour; and the abundance is amazing, giving us a mass of
colour which larger individual flowers could scarcely rival.
Wet or fine the glow abides, but in fine weather its rich brilliance
is certainly of summer’s best and goes far to reconcile us to the
lost glories of the Vernal Gentian. There can be few more satisfying
recollections of early summer days than when, waist-deep amid the
Rhododendrons overgrowing some ancient rock-fall, one gazed across
a rosy expanse, sparingly broken by grey boulder and blasted pine
and falling away towards the snout of some sea-green glacier backed
by snow-draped crags and _aiguilles_, with, in the foreground,
on occasional turfy intervals, groups of orange Arnica and of
_Gymnadenia albida_, the Small Butterfly Orchids, close consort of
the Rhododendron, whilst the Swallow-tail and Alpine Clouded-Yellow
butterflies flirted with the blossoms and chased each other in the
thin, clear air and joy-inspiring sunlight. “The Alpine Rhododendron
... once gave me,” Mr. George Yeld tells us in his chapter contributed
to the Rev. W. A. B. Coolidge’s “The Alps in Nature and in History,”
“one of the most effective sights in the flower-world that I can
recall. I came upon it in a late season—acres of _Rhododendron
ferrugineum_, in a forest where the trees grew at some distance
apart. The brightness of the colour—a rich red—the extent of the
flower show, the setting of pines, and the background of stately
ramparts of rock, with an occasional waterfall, made the scene unique;
and the memory of it is proportionately vivid.” Scarce can such
experience need enlargement along the line of pleasure, and surely
no well-regulated mind will wander in search of larger-flowered
varieties! Such scenes are satisfaction itself—except that they play
upon some secret human chord, awaken “an obscure and mystic sense” and
waft inquisitive mentality
“to the glow
Beyond yon filmy barrier without name
That no eye pierceth!”
[Illustration: _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. ]
* * * * *
The Rhododendron is commonly spoken and written of as the Alpine
Rose; but it is a member of the Heath family, and not of that family
which fable says was created by Bacchus. This is a ready instance of
where popular nomenclature, without discipline, leads to confusion;
for there is an Alpine Rose (_Rosa alpina_), a very lovely rich
magenta-coloured Eglantine often growing cheek-by-jowl with the
pseudo _Alpenrose_ of the Germans. It is quite possible that the word
“Rose” really springs—as in _Monte Rosa_—from _roisa_ or _roësa_,
meaning “glacier” in the ancient patois of the valley of Aosta, and
I have several times seen this more than suggested by authorities in
etymology. The fact remains, however, that the Rhododendron has become
a rose and has thus obscured to some extent the repute and worth of
the real Alpine Rose. In French, the Rhododendron, though it is often
known as _Rose des Alpes_, is sometimes spoken of as _Rue des Alpes_
and _Rosage_.
The Rhododendron is the Swiss national flower. Nor am I sure but that
this honour is not borne almost entirely by _R. ferrugineum_. This is
far more widespread than is _hirsutum_, being far less difficult in
its likes and dislikes. For example, notwithstanding that _hirsutum_
loves limestone, it shuns the Jura Mountains, whereas _ferrugineum_
is common in the Jura, though usually it is shy of lime. And if the
honours really are undivided, they seem to be won by superior aptness,
and the laurel-wreath rests, I think, upon the more appropriate brow.
For, of the two, _ferrugineum_ best typifies the Swiss national
character—masculine sturdiness, common-sensed sanity, void of fine
fastidiousness. The whole habit of _ferrugineum_ is more robust,
more rigid, more resistant. It seeks small clemency; it has, so to
speak, its teeth set, prepared to front the rudest buffets of Alpine
circumstance without a prayer for pity, and to come up smiling in
spite of all. Although, of course, _hirsutum_ has its own good way of
overcoming severe conditions, it has a greater delicacy of bearing and
does not impress one as being possessed of its cousin’s rugged nature.
Eugène Rambert, the Swiss poet-alpinist, speaks of the Rhododendron as
being “_la plante alpine par excellence_” and in doing so he probably
uses the word “Alpine” in the same sense in which we ourselves are
here using it, or else perhaps he refers to the plant as, for the
most part, it is resident in Switzerland. For on the Italian face of
the Alps the Rhododendron descends, as around Lugano, to the plains.
Mr. Stuart Thompson, who has made a special study of altitude in
connection with the mountain flora, says in his “Alpine Plants of
Europe” that _R. ferrugineum_ “ascends to 8,800 feet in Valais, to at
least 8,200 feet in the Maritime Alps, and descends into the plain in
Tessin by Lago Maggiore (with _R. hirsutum_), and by Lake Wallenstadt,
and it is occasionally found as a glacier relic in turbaries in the
woods of the Swiss plateau.”
Mr. Thompson, by mentioning the fact of the remains of Rhododendron
being found in peat deposits on the plains, gives us a glimpse of
this plant slowly retreating up the mountains with the glaciers. And
yet, on the south side of the Alps, it is still to be found upon the
plains! This is one of the mysteries of Alpine plant-life, and one for
which I have seen no satisfactory theory. _Gentiana verna_ shows us, I
believe, the same seeming inconsistency, descending to the sea-coast
in Ireland, yet rarely, if ever, found below 1,300 feet in Switzerland.
Like the English Dog Rose—and this, perhaps, is its greatest likeness
to a Rose—the Rhododendron develops galls (Oak-apples or Robin’s
Pincushions, as they are called in England) upon its leaves. Some
of these are produced by insects and some by a fungus (_Exobasidium
rhododendri_), the latter gall being yellow, and turning pink or rose
on the sunny side. The leaves and flowers are used in infusion for
rheumatism; also as an ingredient of Swiss tea. This shrub, too, is
the food-plant of one of the handsomest of Alpine butterflies, _Colias
Palæno_, a Clouded-Yellow—anything but clouded, though it lives where
clouds are born, for with its clear citron wings boldly bordered with
jet-black and rimmed with tender rose, it is a bright, true child of
high altitudes.
Nor should the Rhododendron be forgotten as a subject for our gardens.
When raised from layers or from seed, it takes quite kindly to our
climate. Indeed, the plants at “Floraire,” M. Henry Correvon’s
charming garden near Geneva, come from England—a fact that will sound
much in line with that of living at Brighton and receiving one’s fish
from London! This anomaly, in the case of the Rhododendron, is due to
the great difficulty of acclimatising the plant to the Swiss plains.
When, however, it has once been acclimatised in England it will
transplant to Switzerland with the greatest success. I cannot remember
ever to have seen in Switzerland a successfully transplanted native
plant of Rhododendron, even though, as is frequently the case around
mountain hotels, it has been a question of moving it only some few
yards from where it was growing wild. These wild plants have a strong
objection to being tamed. But in England’s humid climate it is quite
easy to cultivate, and if fields are to be added to our rockworks the
Rhododendron must have a place in them—a place around the solitary
rocks, a place with the Daphne and the shrubby Honeysuckles.
* * * * *
With what fecundity of resource Nature marshals her forces; with what
amazing ingenuity she passes to her goal! As if to show her wayward
child how academic strictness in one straight line is not the road to
greatest success, she takes a thousand ways to reach one and the same
end, causing extremes and opposites in method to give a common high
result. And this she does on every hand, and in all of her domains.
In the world with which we are now dealing—the plant-world—she is
particularly rich in ways and means. See how, for example, some
flowers need the wind to assist them to propagate their kind, and note
the many ways such flowers have of courting the wind’s assistance;
see how others need the bees and flies to busy themselves about them,
and note the many ways such have of attracting the attentions of bees
and flies; see how some will call in a beetle to eat his way to their
hearts, whilst others will just hob-nob together, independent of any
intermediary. See, again, how some plants bury their roots in the
earth for sustenance, whilst others, with like object, will bury them
in the air; see, too, how some will climb by the help of their thorns,
whilst others will do so by the aid of tendrils, or of rootlets, or of
adhering fingers. An admirably efficient way of achieving a purpose
does not preclude the possibility of there being a score or more other
and equally efficient ways of achieving the same purpose. One species
of Orange-tree may carry its seed in the core of its fruit, whilst
another may carry it in a special exterior annexe; or one species of
Mangrove-tree may breathe by means of its leaves, whilst another may
do so by means of tube-like organs thrown up through the soft mud.
It seems strange we should be so strictly narrow in our outlook,
surrounded as we are by so much clearly demonstrated resourcefulness;
it seems strange that all day long our dogmatic finger should point
here, then there, and the presumptuous cry go up, “_This_ is the only
right and proper way!” It seems strange: for it is thus a person is
a savage in our eyes if, instead of wearing ornaments in his ears,
he wears them in his nose and lips. To be sure, we are improving in
this respect, for at one time we readily burnt people who had another
way of doing things. But there is still vast room for progress. And,
surely, it is no fond trick of the imagination to believe that an
appreciable amount of this room will gradually be appropriated to
progress made through Nature Study. For Nature is too far-sighted to
be dogmatic, too capable to be academic; she leaves an illimitable
margin for what is right, incidentally giving a complete exposition of
the truth of our much employed, but much neglected adage, “All roads
lead to Rome.”
Now, in these two Swiss Rhododendrons there is excellent occasion
for noting two very different means of offering highly effective
resistance to a common foe. The foe is drought—the drought of the
hot, ungenerous, porous moraine, and of the rapid, rocky, sun-baked,
wind-swept slope. Mountain circumstance, such as is affected for the
most part by these Rhododendrons, is the outcome of comparatively
recent disturbance; soil is in the forming, and what there is of it
but thinly coats a tumbled bed of crevassed rocks and boulders. Casual
observation may lead visitors to suppose the Swiss Alpine climate to
be by no means devoid of moisture and to be liable at all seasons to
its fair share of damp, all-enveloping cloud and fog, and to storms of
snow and rain. And casual observation will be right. But no section
of the globe’s face is more thoroughly and more promptly drained than
that of the Alps, and a “deluge” of rain is like so much water
on a duck’s back. Hence, an incomparable system of drainage is one of
the prime disabilities against which Alpine vegetation has to contend.
And the Rhododendrons meet this disability in two ways—_ferrugineum_
with hard leaves, varnished above, and felted and resinous beneath;
_hirsutum_ with softer, pliant leaves fringed by hairs. Thus do both
fence ably the evil of too rapid evaporation; thus do both, by their
diverse methods, give to the student
“The subtle hintings of a perfect whole.”
[Illustration: _GENTIANA VERNA_, the type-plant, and some of its
forms. ]