THE AUTUMN CROCUS
“Tu viens, Automne,
Tu viens ensevelir dans tes habits de fête
Les cadavres couchés au champ de leur défaite.”
ALOYS BLONDEL (the Swiss Poet).
Perhaps the only flower to bless, and bless again, the passage of
the scythe over the damp slopes and fields of Alpine Switzerland
is _Colchicum autumnale_, the so-called Autumn Crocus; for, from
the close-cropped grass it pushes up its blossoms when all other
field-growth has done its utmost. What sorry plight it would be in
if the tall yellowing plants and grasses were still left standing,
cumbering the ground with a dense and matted vegetation! It would be
smothered; or, at best, it would have a fearsome struggle to see the
sky. One wonders how it contrived when, in ages past, these meadows
went uncut. One wonders if the active appetites of browsing animals
sufficed to clear the ground in anticipation of its scheduled advent;
and, should this not have been the case, one wonders if at that time
it were an inhabitant of such fields as these, or whether it were
denizened in more propitious places?
For as soon as the haymakers have gone their way, this lovely flower
begins its apparition. Often, even within a week of the haymakers’
visit, hundreds upon hundreds of its creamy-white pointed buds will
show as if by magic above the close turf; and after a day or two more
of sunshine, the fields will have regained what is almost springtime
life and gaiety. Many of us were sighing whilst we watched the
scythe’s disastrous progress, and were saying that all was over and
it was time to be moving plainwards; but those of us who knew, said:
“Wait—wait! These fields have yet another trump-card to play!”
“What awe and worship follow in her wake,
When Nature works wild magic all her own!”
A week ago we looked for colour to the autumn-infected bush and tree,
and now quite suddenly, over the tired fields, there steals a pale
magenta glow, almost as the spring-glow spread by the Bird’s-Eye or
Mealy Primrose; a week ago we lived and dreamed upon the past, and
now we are startled back to the present by this, “the last that the
damp earth yields”—last but not least—last but in some ways equal to
the first.
* * * * *
This Colchicum receives, in spring, in summer, and in autumn, as much
general attention as any plant in Alpine or sub-Alpine vegetation.
In spring and summer the cluster of rich-green Lily-like leaves
attracts the eye and raises the curiosity and expectation of even the
casual observer, especially when this observer notices what he almost
invariably takes to be a flower-bud nestling in the heart of the
leaves; for if there is one family of plants which the world worships
more than another, it is the Lily family. And this Autumn Crocus is
very commonly taken for a Lily—a Lily soon to burst into rare and
glorious bloom.
[Illustration: _ROSA ALPINA_, the thornless Alpine Eglantine.]
But it is not the flower-bud our casual observer sees; it is the
seed-head. The plant blooms, leafless, in the autumn; its seed-vessel
is tucked away for the winter a foot or more beneath the surface
of the ground, to rise with the leaves in the spring, and to ripen
with the leaves in the summer. Yet, if our casual friend is wrong as
regards the nature of the seed-head in the spring, he is right
as regards the nature of the leaves; though he is again wrong in the
autumn, and this time as regards the nature of the flower. For the
Colchicum is not a Crocus. Although its magenta-pink blossom is of
Crocus-like form, it has six stamens and three styles with which the
humble-bee may busy himself; whereas the Crocus has but three stamens
and one style. There does exist a purple autumnal Crocus—_Crocus
nudiflorus_, indigenous to England, and with the same habit of
flowering and producing its seed as the Colchicum’s—but this and the
Colchicum belong to different natural orders.
The Colchicum is a member of the Lily family, and, as such, is related
to some of the most distinguished members of the flower-world. For
this reason, too, it is allied to such diverse plants as the Herb
Paris, the Lily-of-the-Valley, the Asparagus, and the Spiked Star of
Bethlehem (_Ornithogalum pyrenaicum_), an indigenous English plant
whose young spring shoots are sold and eaten in Bath as “French”
Asparagus. It has also as blood-relation the Onion and the Garlic,
which, according to Professor G. S. Boulger, “were given divine
honours by the ancient Egyptians”; also the curious Butcher’s Broom
or Knee Holly, and the real Star of Bethlehem (_Ornithogalum
umbellatum_), whose bulbs in Palestine are cooked and eaten.
But if the bulbs and young shoots of some members of this singularly
“mixed” family are esteemed as table delicacies, not so the bulbs and
shoots of the Colchicum, for these are poisonous to a high degree—in
fact, the whole of the plant may be labelled “Dangerous.” Although
the flower is less poisonous than the seed and the bulb, yet many a
time I have seen bees which had sought refuge from the night or from
rough and stormy weather, lying prone and stark within the lovely
pink chalices, victims of a misplaced confidence. The seed contains
a deadly alkaloid (colchicin), used especially in cases of gout.
Where the plant grows in quantities it depreciates the value of the
meadows; for the cattle, wiser in their generation than the bees, give
it a wide berth at all seasons. And it is no easy subject to drive
from the fields when once it has gained firm footing. It buries its
dark chestnut-coloured, scaly bulb at least a foot down in the peaty
soil, necessitating the cutting of a good-sized hole before it can be
extirpated. Hence, if it is growing as it almost invariably does, in
fairly close-packed abundance, the meadow will have to be deep-dug
all over; and such radical measure as this the peasants as a rule
refuse to take, contenting themselves with pulling up the leaf and
stalk before the fields are cut, or with sorting them out from the
new-mown hay.
As a plant indigenous to the British Isles it is very local, though
widely distributed. Saffron Walden, in Essex, is named after it, and
it is found in Ireland and in some parts of Scotland, especially upon
the damp meadows of limestone districts.
The name Colchicum, of Greek origin, is said to be derived from
Colchis, a province in Asia famous for poisonous herbs. In England,
besides the names of Autumn Crocus and Meadow Saffron (_Crocus
sativus_ is really the true Saffron Crocus), its flower is known in
some parts of the country as Naked Boy, and in Dorset as Naked Lucy,
an allusion, of course, to it being bare of leaves. In France its
popular names are seemingly more various, and besides the general one
of _Colchique_, it has those of _Veilleuse_, _Veillotte_, _Violon_,
_Vache_, and _Tue-chien_; while in the patois of Marseilles it is
known as _Bramo-Vaco_, and in that of Gascony as _Safra dès prats_.
In Germany its best-known appellation is _Herbst-Zeitlose_.
There is an Alpine form of the Meadow Saffron—_Colchicum alpinum_—and
this is to be found upon the fields from an altitude of about 3,000
feet to some 4,500 feet, according to M. Henry Correvon, and from
about 1,800 feet to some 6,000 feet, according to Professor Flahault.
Mr. Newell Arber calls it a rare plant “sometimes found in Canton
Tessin and the Valais,” but my own experience is that it is local
rather than rare, and that it is fairly frequent in Canton Valais,
especially in non-limestone regions. Its habit is the same as that of
_autumnale_: two to three upright leaves surrounding the fruit in the
spring, and the flowers appearing “naked” in autumn upon “dim fields
fresh with blooming dew.” But the leaves are narrower than those of
_autumnale_, and the flower is smaller, daintier, more _petite_, with
a suspicion of canary-yellow tinting the stem, which, in _autumnale_,
is white or creamy-white.
I have sometimes noted the two—_autumnale_ and _alpinum_—hob-nobbing
upon the same slope or field. Such fraternity exists, for instance,
quite near to the snug little village of Trient, beneath the Col de
la Forclaz and the Col de Balme, and again on a rich grassy slope by
the lake of Champex; and where this occurs the difference between the
two flowers is manifest. _Colchicum alpinum_ may be only the Alpine
form of _autumnale_, but if it is, it is, I believe, a fixed form—a
form which, unlike some Alpine forms of lowland flowers (such as, for
example, _Anthyllis vulneraria_), steadfastly maintains its highland
character when transported to the gardens of the plain. For if
instability exists, why should we find upon the fields where both do
congregate, no intermediate forms marking the passage of _autumnale_
to _alpinum_ and vice versa? I believe it to be as constant as is
_Gentiana brachyphylla_, although this is said to be but a high Alpine
form of _G. verna_. I believe it to be as “constant as the northern
star.”
* * * * *
In a poem to “Noon,” Michael Field sings:
“... Sharply on my mind
Presses the sorrow; fern and flower are blind”;
and this is no uncommon thought, no uncommon “sorrow” for others than
poets to have. Pity for the dear, blind flowers; pity, therefore, for
such a flower as the Autumn Crocus; is it justified? I imagine it is
not. I venture even to say I am sure it is not.
Here is a flower that is exceptional. It defies the general rule, the
usual sequence of life for flowers. It reverses the customary order
of events and, so to speak, turns day into night. And it does so with
the utmost felicity. Its well-being is ideal, for it shows perfect
adaptation to its circumstance. What, then, have we? “What rumour of
what mystery?” Can it be a rumour of disability through blindness? Is
it a rumour of the mystery of justice? Is it, that is to say, a rumour
of “injustice”? I think not; nay, I am sure not. It is, if you ask me,
a rumour of that wide and many-sided efficiency to which we refer when
we declare: “There are more ways than one of killing a cat.”
The fault is quite a common one with us. We fall into it each time we
talk of animals—the “poor, dumb animals.” Wherefore poor? Wherefore
dumb? Man, noisily verbose, condescends to commiserate with anything
less noisy or less verbose than himself. To him, an absence of
capacity for a volubility matching his own marks unhappiness. What, he
asks, would not a cow give for humanity’s gift of the gab? Anything
short of a garrulous chatterbox of a mouse must be a wretched mouse!
How contorted a view to take when every living thing (except, perhaps,
man) is capable of adequate communion with its kind, and when that
which is adequate is happy! The method of communication may not be
man’s method; he may not understand a sound of it, and there may even
be no sound for him to hear; nevertheless there is language clear and
effective—perhaps more clear and more effective than his own. Who
shall say the language of the ant or the bee is not more developed and
more efficient than either English or Chinese? Efficiency does not
ultimately lie in complexity, neither does it ultimately depend upon
noise.
I have no doubt that a horse, unless he has better sense, feels the
profoundest pity for his garrulous master, and counts him among the
most unhappy of his acquaintances. A lion’s roar or a bat’s squeak may
contain a wealth of information such as it would take Man an hour’s
hard talking to translate; and both may indicate a world of happiness.
Man, the rowdiest animal in Creation, is also the most conceited.
He is for ever thanking his stars he is not as others are; and this
enables him to misplace a vast amount of pity. I warrant the poor,
dumb, grunting pig is perfectly happy—far happier than the most glib
of human orators; and far more to the point. Poor, dumb animals? Why,
what a poor, talkative creature is man! And how unmindful of his own
proverb about “little pitchers”!
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_.
[Illustration: 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
“The meadows are waving high
With plumy grasses of grey”;
the next, the scythe comes, and, like Harlequin’s wand, passes
restless athwart the ripe scene—and, hey, presto! the fields have
all the closeness of the fields in springtime, and are studded with
countless rosy stars of the Autumn Crocus, just as, in the first
days of the year, they are studded with the myriad rosy stars of
_Bulbocodium vernum_, near relative of our tardy _Colchique_. It is
September struggling to be May or, even, April. It is the goddess of
the flower-fields bidding us to a rosy hope in her recurrent reign.
And yet, and yet—autumn is noticeably in the blood of things. This
is not quite the rosiness of the year’s youth. There is something of
mauve in it; something of a becoming consideration for old age. It
is obviously an autumnal pink—a pink which falls without ado into
the glorious colour-scheme of Nature’s kindling funeral-pyre. It has
something of the spirit of the colouring surrounding a Chinese burial.
There is sadness, if you will; but there is gladness, whether you will
or not. Chopin’s famous Funeral March might have been inspired by
autumn’s pale-magenta “Crocus.”
PART II
_A PLEA_
“Viens au jardin! Viens au jardin! Je veux te dire
Ce que je pense, car ma pensée est à toi
Comme la brume au sol et la fumée au toit.
Viens au jardin!”
ROSEMONDE GÉRARD, _Les Jardins_.
CHAPTER XI
ALPINE FIELDS FOR ENGLAND
“En multipliant la beauté, en donnant au monde des humbles le
sens de la sincère beauté, vous lui aurez fait la plus exquise et
peut-être la plus utile des charités.”—PIERRE VIGNOT.
The title of this chapter will come as a shock to some, and they will
think it an insult to, and an outrage upon, Nature’s existing efforts
for English meadows. In my previous volume, “Alpine Flowers and
Gardens,” I ventured some mild wonder “that more attempts are not made
in England to create Alpine pastures,” and I added: “Alpine rockworks
we have in hundreds, but a stretch of meadow-land sown or planted
with Alpine field-flowers seems as yet to be but rarely attempted.”
And of this mild wonder some of my critics fell foul, and I was told
that I seemed “to forget the peculiar beauty of English pasture as
it is, with its buttercups, cowslips, and orchis, daisies and red
sorrel.” But let me reassure these nervous champions of what is “made
in England.” I will be the last to slight or traduce the exquisite
restraint of our typical home-fields, or to despise the spirit that
can appreciate their charm and place it higher than the charm of
alien fields. The inhabitants of a country are intimately affected by
the country’s fields, and an Englishman is far more a product of his
meadows than even he would suppose. His sturdy advocacy of a floral
sufficiency which stops at Dandelions and Buttercups is part proof of
this. Reciprocity in Nature is a very subtle and far-reaching law, and
man owes much of his temperament and habit of mind to the landscape
and its constituent parts. In this way, undoubtedly, the Englishman is
largely indebted to the comparative taciturnity of his fields. Far be
from me, then, to under-rate their value and their charm.
And yet, may I not think that this value and charm can perhaps be
augmented? We love and revel in our native meadows as they are—their
Buttercups, their Dandelions, their Daisies, and their Grasses; how
much greater would not the love and revel be if here and there a
generous measure of Swiss mountain-wealth were added? Such measure
would be no violent innovation; it would be a natural amplification
of the hereditary trend of our instinct for the beautiful. Swiss
mountain-fields are not like Japanese gardens: our nature responds to
them without affectation, for in them our mind
“Doth straight its own resemblance find.”
It is all very well for confirmed materialists to say we have not to
study this side of the question because it is too fanciful; it is not
to be dismissed by calling us mystics. Fancy has led men to much that
is now inseparable from their understanding, and the mystic has stood
for ages upon spots where Science is only now confidently placing her
foot. Really and truly, too, the æsthetic aspect of life comes under
the head of the utilitarian, and it matters more than much that is
deemed material. Ruskin thought that “a wood of English trees is of
more value to humanity than a Bank;” but this savours of too dogmatic
thinking, and of the extreme dream of a specialist enthusiast. Without
drawing invidious comparisons between the utilities of life, we may
say that the woods and fields have an importance all their own, and
that, by increasing their beauty, we increase their importance.
I do not for one instant think that in Maytime we could improve
upon the weighty wealth of Hawthorn set amid knee-deep meadows
of Buttercups and Parsnips; for the rare witchery of it all is
unmistakable. I would leave it as it stands: British _par excellence_,
unrivalled for quiet prosperity, for unique felicity. Nor would I
tamper with the wealth of Primrose copse, or attempt to meddle with
the woods of Bluebells, Daffodils, and Foxgloves. To do any such thing
would be purest sacrilege—and a wild conceit into the bargain! No, no;
there is much, very much in Britain’s countryside that rightly stands
in the front rank of Nature’s happiest creations, and it were mad
impertinence to think to oust it or to improve it by inept additions.
But these front-rank marvels are not everywhere. Many is the spot that
might reasonably be bettered; many the wayside field, copse, bank, or
railway-cutting that would repay us for a little help; and it is in
such places (_pax_, O Farmer! have I not gone round to avoid treading
on your property?)—it is with regard to such places that I do suggest
we might take a leaf from Nature’s Alpine book.
[Illustration: 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. ]
But why, some will ask—why interfere with our indigenous
field-flowers, and thus with our pure-bred English fields; why
cause anything so individual to become mongrel? And this sounds
plausible until we examine the pedigree of some of our “indigenous”
flowers, and find that they are “doubtful natives,” and owe their
presence among us to the Roman invader or are “escapes from
cultivation.” Precedent is therefore on our side. Then why should not
we of this twentieth century do as did the Romans for Britain—only
with a little more method, not trusting to the seed of Alpine
field-flowers coming inadvertently to England in our portmanteaux, our
boots, or our hair? We ought not to be afraid of the inevitable trend
of things towards a more general, more common aspect. We may well
nurse some particular individuality so long as it is eminently useful,
but at the same time we should leave our judgment open with regard
to accretion, or, as the dictionary calls it, “increase by natural
growth.” Insularity is a disappearing quantity, and there surely will
and must come a time when we shall chiefly hear of it from books of
ancient history and scandalous _Mémoires_.
But if for the present we cannot bring ourselves to continue
systematically the work of the Romans, let us at least take in hand
some of the field-plants we have already with us, and induce them to
become more general and abundant. Even in that way we should approach
to something of Alpine prodigality; for there is quite a goodly number
of British plants among the colour-giving subjects of an Alpine
meadow. There is, for instance, _Geranium sylvaticum_ (the rose or
blue-mauve Wood Crane’s-bill), rare, and found mostly upon pastures in
the north; or there is _Astrantia major_ (the pinky-green-and-white
Masterwort), an “escape,” near Ludlow and Malvern; or _Phyteuma
spicata_ (the cream-coloured Rampion), found only in Sussex; or
_Salvia pratensis_ (the rich-blue Meadow Clary), scarce, and confined
to fields in Kent, Oxfordshire, and Cornwall; or _Polemonium cœruleum_
(the blue Jacob’s Ladder or Greek Valerian), rare, and confined to
the north of England. Why should not such as these be brought from
out their hiding and be induced to people propitious places in a more
abundant way?
No sooner, however, does “sweet reasonableness” begin to dawn upon
our imaginations, and we commence to take kindly to our idea, than
we are confronted by the irate farmer—hasty and nervous lest we and
our “weeds” have designs upon his domain—upbraiding us for daring to
suggest such palpably bad farming. But we have no intent to meddle
with _his_ meadows. Yet if we had, what answer can we make him? Is it
of any use for us to point to Swiss experience of flowery pastures,
telling him that the finest cheeses—those of Gruyère and Emmenthal—are
made on the middle or lower “alpen,” and that, in fact, they come from
fields which are literally crammed with lovely flowering plants? Is it
of any use assuring him that cows fed on the comparatively flowerless
fields of Fully, for example, opposite Martigny in the Rhône Valley,
give not only less, but less rich milk than those fed on the fields
of Chemin, Chables, or Champex, and that, whenever possible, the
flowerless hay goes to the horses? Is it of any use pointing out
these facts to our scandalised friend? Possibly not. Possibly he
will retort: “Necessity makes high use of just whatsoever is within
reach; other lands other ways; circumstance creates ideals.” And quite
possibly he will be right.
* * * * *
But whatever may be said in disparagement of the introduction
of Alpine plants into England’s fields in general, little or no
objection can be made to fields of such plants as adjuncts to Alpine
rock-gardens, or as embellishments to park and pleasaunce. Here we
are in a domain which is “orthodoxly” regarded as æsthetic, and not
as practical or utilitarian. And, after all, we had best begin by the
thin end of the wedge—we had best commence with these flower-fields as
a “luxury”; afterwards—as is quite likely—we may be able to chronicle
“escapes” into the general scheme of the countryside.
I can think of no feature of the Alpine landscape which could add
so much charm and interest to English Alpine gardens as an Alpine
meadow, and it is no mean matter for surprise that this feature has
not so far claimed the attention it most assuredly merits. Moreover,
an Alpine rock-garden shorn of its meadow-setting is less than a
picture devoid of its frame. Can any one who knows the Alps imagine
what they and their rock-flora would be without the fields and grassy
slopes? Would there be the same widespread and immediate interest? It
is inconceivable, for these fields and slopes are, as it were, the
exquisitely sumptuous hall through which, amazed and wondering, we
pass to gain the rudeness and refinement of Alpine asceticism proper.
Then there is another and, I think, a crying reason for the creation
of fields to supplement our rockworks; we garden at present, for
the most part, as if all Alpines were rock-plants, whereas quite an
important percentage are purely field-flowers. It will be said that in
England’s comparatively luxurious climate the grasses would overwhelm
the Alpines and that, therefore, it is only wise to place these latter
out of harm’s way. But, although there certainly are some subjects
of an Alpine meadow which could scarcely be expected to grapple
successfully with English conditions, yet there is a whole host that
could do so, especially if care were taken to choose suitable grasses
and to exclude certain English weeds (the Field Bindweed, for example,
or the Plantain). In advocating any such adoption as the present, we
must not be so unphilosophic as to be sweeping and dogmatic; we must
be quick to recognise that such subjects of the Alpine grass-lands as
_Viola calcarata_ and _Gentiana verna_, _excisa_, and _nivalis_ shall
of necessity be ushered to the rockwork when they arrive in our island
home. But, frankly, I believe there are many of these plants which
would be altogether grateful to find themselves in a field rather than
in a garden-border or upon a rockery.
Will any one deny that a plant which, in a wild, free state,
invariably chooses to dwell upon the meadows is not more at home
there than when robbed of such pressing, self-sought company? Will
any one deny that, for instance, _Campanula rhomboidalis_, _Paradisia
Liliastrum_, _Salvia pratensis_, _Narcissus poeticus_, _Veratrum
album_, or _Phyteuma betonicifolium_ are not infinitely happier when
growing together in close company with grasses than when standing in
select isolation upon the rockery or the garden-border?
Possibly it will be argued that these field-plants show themselves
so much better on the border or the rockwork. But do they? Does
Colchicum, for example, look better against the brown earth of a
border than upon a thick-set carpet of green? Does _Veronica spicata_
ever look better than when seen upon the fields of the Alps? Is it
possible that the Meadow-Orchids are not at their best among the
grasses? For my own part, I find many of these plants look thin and
lonesome when carefully set apart “to do themselves full justice.” In
nature they are items in a rich reciprocal scheme of intimacy, and in
this assuredly is their truest happiness; therefore, as part of this
scheme they must certainly be seen at their best. Snatched from their
social birthright and perched in grandeur upon a rockwork, they cannot
but have wistful thoughts of lost companionship.
Owners of rockworks may protest that they do all they possibly can for
their captives, treating them as tenderly as they would any beautiful
bird in a cage; they may protest that their captives are fed and
watered most carefully and know little or nothing of the struggle for
existence which rules upon Alpine meadows. And this is all very right
and proper as far as it goes; but very many of these plants could be
treated even more kindly and properly by allowing them something of
their ancestral habits. That which untrammelled Nature decrees for her
offspring is inevitably best, and we should take practical note of it
where possible. We ourselves are rebels and, as modern instance shows,
are very conscious of it in our more rational moments, crying aloud
in a hazy, frightened way, that we must “get back to Nature!” Why,
then, compel rebellion in so many a thing we admire? Such compulsory
estrangement from what is natural is a sorry sort of kindness. Let us
put back the field-flowers into the fields—or, at any rate, as many as
we may.
To a great number of flower-lovers this would be a much simpler
matter than the building and tending of rockworks (though, of
course, the ideal should be for the field to companion or environ
the rockery). It would be less complicated, and it would not entail
such a variety of specialist knowledge. Many of a kind, and each kind
robust and, for the most part, ordinary—that should be the rule among
the plants for our Alpine meadow. Fractious, exigent rarities would
naturally not be welcome. Fields are perhaps loveliest when planned
upon broad lines. There is no need to make extraordinary efforts
to find sports and forms; no need to do more than Nature does—here
and there a white or porcelain-grey _Campanula rhomboidalis_, here
and there a pale-pink _Geranium sylvaticum_, here and there a white
_Salvia pratensis_, here and there a white _Colchicum autumnale_.
Forms and sports and vagaries are all very well, but in these meadows
it is the type-plant which counts. A field of Salvia, Campanula, and
Geranium is blue and mauve; that is the general effect, and variation
from it rarely counts in the colour-scheme. Eccentricity we may keep
for the proud eminence of our rockworks.
[Illustration: The tall yellow _HYPOCHŒRIS UNIFLORA_, _CENTAUREA
UNIFLORA_, the Golden Hawkweed (_Crepis aurea_) drawn from life in the
July fields. ]
* * * * *
If it is not possible to transplant to the plains the clean,
invigorating air which goes so far to form the joy exhaled of Alpine
meadows; if we may not lay on the wonderful atmosphere of the Alps as
we may the ozone from the seaside,—we can at least take the flowers,
those brilliant children of the Alpine ether, and thus help materially
towards mountain purity in our parks and gardens. Some of the gaiety
might be lost in the process—some of that intensity of colouring
which steals over the very grass as it climbs the mountain-side and
encroaches upon the kingdom of the Rhododendron. _Astrantia major_
might lose its rosy-magenta blush and assume a more or less livid
green-white; Lychnis, Geranium, and Salvia might lack something of
their Alpine lustre; a certain mildness might reign generally in
the place of mountain briskness; but, on the whole, the loss to the
flowers would be small and the gain to the garden or the landscape
immense, and we should find that we had annexed much of the charm and
joy of Alpine days—
“Days lit with the flame of the lamps of the flowers.”
CHAPTER XII
SOME WAYS AND MEANS
“No gardener has made experiments, however small, in the formation
of a rock garden and the culture of Alpine plants without bringing
a new gladness to himself and others.”—S. REYNOLDS HOLE, _A Book
About the Garden_.
For such as wish to set about creating an Alpine meadow, either as
an attractive feature of their pleasure-grounds or—which is more to
the point—as a completing part of their rock-garden, let me at once
say that this volume is no detailed _vade mecum_, and that, for the
cultural requirements of the plants mentioned, recourse must be had to
the many good books already dealing with that phase of the subject.
All that is pretended here is to point the way to a much-neglected
path in Alpine circumstance and to attempt to arouse the necessary
enthusiasm for its better and more just appreciation, incidentally
indicating what may be novel in its aspect and untouched by
Alpine gardening books. To this end, then, I would try to conjure up a
representative field or meadow of the Alps. But, before doing so, let
me impress upon the reader that, not only will it be no Alpine field
in the popular sense, but that we may occasionally have to descend
even to the fields of the Swiss plain in order to find one or two
subjects which we can use with advantage to enrich our scheme—plants
such as the Star of Bethlehem and _Scilla bifolia_. The Swiss plains
lie high when judged by English standards; rarely, if ever, do they
fall below some 1,200 feet.
* * * * *
The field I have in my mind’s eye as I write these lines is one which,
“with its early and exquisite diversities of form and colour”—to quote
again from Dean Hole’s little book—“is a new and large delight.”
It is one in which the bulbs, hundreds upon hundreds in number and
about five in kind, burst into life with the grass in the first
days of spring. White and purple _Crocus vernus_, rosy Crocus-like
_Bulbocodium vernum_, and yellow Gagea are the first-comers, quickly
followed by the golden Daffodil (_Narcissus Pseudo-narcissus_), the
bright blue _Scilla bifolia_, the green-and-white Star of Bethlehem
(_Ornithogalum umbellatum_) and its handsome large-flowered relative,
_O. nutans_. Then, following close upon the Violet, Cowslip, and
Oxlip, come the earlier of the Orchids—_Orchis Morio_, _O. mascula_,
and _O. maculata_. A little later _Myosotis sylvestris_ spreads a blue
haze over the field, aiding most admirably the lively pink of _Orchis
(Gymnadenia) conopsea_, and rendering the appearance of _Paradisia
Liliastrum_, the paper-white Paradise Lily, daintier than ever. And
now I see a glorious multitude of Pheasant-eye Narcissus (_Narcissus
poeticus_), with here and there a tall, deep blue or purple Columbine.
Lemon-yellow _Biscutella lævigata_, too, clear-blue _Linum alpinum_,
and white _Potentilla rupestris_ blend their blossoms to produce a
lovely harmony in true spring-like key. _Muscari comosum_ throws
up its curious blue-purple spikes, over-topped by the white sprays
of _Anthericum Liliago_. And in the moister part of the meadow I
see great colonies of _Ranunculus aconitifolius_ and the yellow
Globe-Flower (_Trollius europæus_) sown in most happy manner with
our Ragged-Robin (_Lychnis Flos-cuculi_), presently to be joined by
bright-pink regiments of Bistort or Snakeweed (_Polygonum Bistorta_).
And then, when _Centaurea montana_, accompanied by _Geranium
sylvaticum_, _Salvia pratensis_, _Lychnis dioica_ (the Red Catchfly),
_Silene Cucubalus_ (the Bladder Campion), and _Polemonium cæruleum_
usher in the summer, the field is rich indeed in blue, mauve, lilac,
red, and pink, with a distinct leaning towards blue, mauve, and lilac.
And these colours seem to hold their own to the end. White may come
with the Ox-eye Daisy (_Chrysanthemum leucanthemum_) and the many
Umbelliferæ; red may come with brilliant _Centaurea uniflora_ and
crimson _C. nigra_, the common Hard-head; yellow may come with tall
_Hypochœris uniflora_ and such Buttercups as _Ranunculus bulbosus_ and
_R. acris_, but blue and mauve and lilac seem always to predominate;
for the Rampions (_Phyteuma betonicæfolium_ and _P. orbiculare_) and
Campanulas (_C. rotundifolia_ and _C. rhomboidalis_) join forces with
the Meadow Clary and the Wood Crane’s-bill and linger on until the
Martagon Lily is gone out of flower and the field stands more than
ready for the scythe. Indeed, long after the scythe has done its
worst, and _Colchicum autumnale_ is a thing of yesterday, and autumn’s
fires have paled, and
“The few late flowers have moisture in the eye,”
those flowers, or the major portion of those flowers, will be blue and
mauve and lilac—Campanula, Geranium, and Salvia.
A field such as this is a garden in itself, and a revelation,
surely, for those who know only our home-fields. And it will be
noted that in such a field there need be no destruction of effective
English field-flowers. Indeed, the addition of Alpine wealth to
our home-fields ought not to oust any but rank invaders, such as
the Plantain, the Nettle, or the Bindweed, or other “volunteers,”
as Californians picturesquely call them. Our Buttercups, Daisies,
Orchids, and Red Sorrel should be secure; Dandelions and Ox-eye
Marguerites can, and should, continue their reign as of yore; for all
of these are constituents of meadows in the Alps. Thus, if we create
meadows to companion our rockworks, we should be growing many an
Alpine which at present we do not allow among our Alpines; and in this
way, if in no other, our Alpine gardens would be far more complete,
far more representative, and, therefore, far more worthy the name.
No; because a flower is already common in England is no necessary
reason why it should be taboo in any Alpine field we may create in
England. Indeed, such common things as the Marsh Marigold (_Caltha
palustris_), the two Buttercups (_Ranunculus acris_ and _R. bulbosus_)
and the Bladder Campion (_Silene Cucubalus_) are most precious. Who
that has seen the Marsh Marigold pencilling with golden lines the
course of some mountain rivulet through the spring fields, and lying,
with _Primula farinosa_, a brilliant mass, in some juicy hollow; or
the two Buttercups, blending with acres of _Ranunculus aconitifolius_,
and forming a filmy sea of yellow and white; or slopes packed with the
Bladder Campion and the tall Rampion (_Phyteuma betonicæfolium_), a
perfect picture of grey-white and blue,—who that has seen these common
flowers thus growing but has not vowed rarity to be no essential
passport to the ranks of beauty? I remember once—it was at Montroc,
near the Col des Montets—passing over a meadow-slope of Bladder
Campion and Rampion, with just a sprinkling of that other and closely
allied Campion, _Silene nutans_ (the Nottingham Catchfly), and the
effect so fascinated me, as to send up these Campions considerably in
my esteem, as subjects with decorative possibilities of which I had
not dreamed.
Objection may possibly be taken to the large area required for the
creation of an Alpine meadow in comparison with its short duration
as “a thing of beauty.” It will perhaps be objected that our field
must be mown; that the ripening growth cannot be allowed “to lie in
cold obstruction and to rot”; that, from July to the end of the year,
the field will be a stubbly place of emptiness, whereas our rockwork
will bear a continual round of interest until the coming of the frost.
And this complaint would be reasonable if we were dealing with just
an English meadow set with certain Alpine plants to make it gayer
than is its habit. But we are not—not, that is to say, if we are
contemplating the meadow as a companioning feature of our rock-garden.
A typical Alpine meadow is full of “accident”; there is nothing of the
billiard-table about its eventful surface. Palpably, it must have been
the scene of utmost violence before Nature decked it out with verdure.
Steep depressions; wide gullies; abrupt limits, falling suddenly away
in a grassless, rocky bank to a rough path below,—such “accidents” as
these break its even tenor. Rocks, grey and lichen-flecked, crop up
from it here and there—rocks hurled in some past fury from the heights
above or borne from afar upon the breast of some ancient glacier; for
an Alpine field, more often than not, is a delightful combination of
rockwork and pasture. Hence there is accommodation for a much
wider range of plant-life than in a meadow run upon English lines, and
the season of interest is, therefore, as long-lived as that of any
part of our garden. “Accident,” indeed, is the constant characteristic
of it, and floral variety the natural corollary. When the hay has been
made upon the richer portions of it, the poorer or more broken parts
and the rocks continue to abound in blossom, giving us such things
as the Thalictrums, Monkshoods, Peas, Veronicas, Pinks, Saxifrages,
Sempervivums, and Sedums.
[Illustration: _GENTIANA CAMPESTRIS_ and _GENTIANA BAVARICA_. ]
When, therefore, we choose the parcel of ground to be transformed into
a Swiss mountain meadow, we should not be dismayed if its surface is
already more than undulating; we should not summon assistance to level
it up and smooth it out. We are not proposing to make a croquet-lawn,
but are supposed to be inspired by Nature in one of her wild,
“irresponsible” moods. Violence, however, should depend upon size.
If we are dealing with several acres, we can afford to be grand with
regard to “accident”; but if the land at our disposal is, perhaps,
half an acre, irregularity should be to scale; for to be artistic we
should avoid extravagance.
Rocks, as has been said, are an almost essential feature of an
Alpine field. The ground should rise towards them and should be of
a poorer nature than where the grass is to be really meadowy; for
upon the poorer ground we shall be dependent for many colonies of gay
and interesting plants which would be out of place, even they could
exist, among the thicker grasses. Here we may count upon brilliance
long after the Geranium and its field-consorts have been mown
down—brilliance afforded by such subjects as _Ononis natrix_, _Linum
tenuifolium_, _L. alpinum_, _Jasione montana_, _Campanula spicata_,
_C. barbata_, _C. persicifolia_, _Trifolium alpinum_, _Eryngium
alpinum_, _Vicia onobrychioides_, _Veronica urticæfolia_, _Lathyrus
heterophyllus_, _Anthyllis vulneraria_, _Carduus defloratus_,
_Verbascum phlomoides_, and _Onobrychis viciæfolia_, the rosy Sainfoin
or “wholesome hay,” for which the ass is said to bray.
The rocks employed ought, in greater part, to be of a “generous”
nature, not hard and unresponsive. They should if possible be even
soft (as rocks go) and somewhat liable to disintegration—rocks upon
which, with a little preliminary encouragement, Sedums, Dianthus, and
Sempervivums can take root. They ought not to be built up to form
what is generally recognised as a rockwork, but should be large,
massive, and sparsely set, cropping up from the ground haphazard
and as if their greater bulk were beneath the soil. Grass should be
encouraged to grow about them, even upon them in places; and _Poa
alpina, forma vivipara_ is a suitable, as well as a most interesting,
grass for this purpose. The Alpine Clover, too (_Trefolium alpinum_),
may well be encouraged to spread around the base of these rocks and
over the ground that slopes up to them. With its large, loose, rosy
flower-heads, sometimes white or lilac, it is an ever-welcome June
visitor, especially where it luxuriates; as, for instance, at Le
Planet, below the French side of the Col de Balme.
I have said that the rocks ought, _in greater part_, to be of
a “generous” nature; and I have said this because a hard and
unresponsive rock here and there would not be out of place. Although
quantity equally with quality is the predominant note in Alpine
floral circumstance, it is not an invariable rule, and something of
barrenness only adds to the scene of plenty. Moreover, a cold, bare
rock with just one cleft in it where some single tuft of Dianthus,
or of _Veronica saxatilis_, for instance, can cling is often a very
precious object amid a surrounding exuberance of blossom. Often in
English rock-gardens there is too little unoccupied rock. Ubiquity
of plant life in this respect is not so artistic as when there is a
modicum of reticence; nor is it so truthful.
Another by no means inappropriate feature is that which can be lent by
shrubs or bushes; not as hedges, for Switzerland, when compared with
England, may be said to be devoid of
“... Little lines
Of sportive wood run wild.”
characteristic commonplaces in England, where, it is said, they cover
one and a half million acres, they are rare in Switzerland; or, at any
rate, as Leslie Stephen remarked, “those detestable parallelograms,
which cut up English scenery with their hedgerows, are sternly
confined to the valley.” And in the valley they are comparatively
scarce, and lack the charm pertaining to the English hedgerow.
No; if our field is to have an Alpine allure, hedges must be tabu.
But a negligent grouping around the rocks or upon the outskirts
of the field, of such bushes as _Rhododendron ferrugineum_, _Rosa
alpina_, _Berberis vulgaris_, _Rosa pomifera_, _Juniperus nana_,
_Sambucus racemosa_, and the two Honeysuckles, _Lonicera alpigena_
and _L. nigra_, would not only enhance the effect and interest, but
would tally with Nature as she generally rules in the Alps. Nor
would the Bird Cherry (_Prunus avium_), if kept in bush form, be out
of place. This lovely spring-flowering tree, treated as a hedgerow
subject on the plateau at the back of Lausanne, is an arresting
object in the fields around Chamonix at the end of May. And here,
with the shade and shelter of such bushes, may come the nobly plumed
Goat’s Beard (_Spiræa Aruncus_), the mauve and the cream-plumed
_Thalictrum aquilegifolium_, the deep-blue _Aconitum napellus_, the
violet-blue _A. paniculatum_, the creamy-white _A. Lycoctonum_,
the rosy _Adenostyles albifrons_, the ever-graceful Solomon’s Seal
(_Polygonatum verticillatum_), the blue-mauve _Mulgedium alpinum_, the
red-brown _Lilium Martagon_, the brilliant orange _L. croceum_, the
pale-yellow _Salvia glutinosa_, the golden _Lathyrus luteus_, the pink
and feathery _Dianthus superbus_, the Fennel-like _Meum athamanticum_,
the distinctive Umbellifer, _Laserpitium latifolium_, besides such
Orchids as _Epipactis atrorubens_, _E. latifolia_, _Cephalanthera
ensifolia_, _C. pallens_, _C. rubra_, and _Habenaria (Plantanthera)
chlorantha_.
If we are to have some kind of boundary-mark to our field, let it be
by preference a low, mortarless wall of fairly large rough stones or
pieces of rock built up with earth—a sort of rockwork wall. These
walls may be met with almost anywhere in the Swiss mountains, and are
frequently composed of fragments of rock which at one time and another
have been strewn about the fields by rockfalls or avalanches. They
often become the home of brilliant masses of such plants as _Saponaria
ocymoides_, _Silene rupestris_, _Gypsophila repens_, _Helianthemum
vulgare_, _Arabis alpina_, _Calamintha alpina_, and _Cerastium
alpinum_, thus adding considerably to the gaiety and charm of the
fields—a gaiety and charm which in the case of these walls lasts well
into the autumn.
Some difficulty may be experienced over the grass which is to
accompany the meadow-flowers. Indeed, it is an objection usually
raised whenever I have broached the subject of Alpine fields to
gardening enthusiasts; they fear that English meadow-grass would
overwhelm the stranger-flowers by leaving them no room to breathe. But
is not this obstacle one rather of hasty imagining than of reality?
We are not proposing to put _Viola alpina_, _Gentiana verna_, or the
Soldanella into the field. Moreover, there are grasses and grasses;
and I believe a very suitable selection could be made from any of
the leading seed-merchants. I should suggest that the ground be sown
with smaller, daintier grasses, and _only after the flowering-plants
have become more or less established_; and I imagine that if this
were done—and a sharp eye kept for the ever-ready invasion by native
weeds—the imported field-flowers would hold their own.
An interesting fact in connection with Alpine fields—one that
should not be copied in England—is the tendency of what is usually
shade-loving vegetation to creep out into the sunlight. In spite of
the intensity and power of the sun’s rays, even certain ferns, such
as _Aspidium Lonchitis_, the Holly-fern, and _Polystichum Filix-mas_,
seem to think nothing of basking upon the hottest slopes. True, their
roots are generally sheltered by rock and stone, but the fronds look
the sun squarely in the face; and yet, what can possibly be fresher
and more engaging than, for instance, the masses of Parsley-fern to be
met with in the stony places of the granitic Alps? Wood-Sorrel, too,
will come out into the open; so will the little Alpine London Pride
(_Saxifraga cuneifolia_) and the little Yellow Violet; so, also, will
the May Lily or False Lily-of-the-Valley (_Smilacina bifolia_). In
England, _Astrantia major_, when found, is said to seek the partial
shade of copse and spinny, but here on these Alpine fields it is in
the full sunshine—and looking very much the better for such boldness.
It is as though the higher plants climb, the less they fear the light,
extraordinarily searching though this latter be; it is as though they
revel in the purity, and, casting retirement to the winds, take on a
new and healthier joy in life.
[Illustration: _ASTRANTIA MAJOR_, _A. MINOR_, and the Apollo
butterfly. ]
There is, perhaps, just one other matter calling for special
attention: the grouping of colours. Alpine fields own immense variety
in this regard. Some will be almost of uniform tint, while others
are of a bewildering, diverse blend. One will be blue and white
(_Campanula rhomboidalis_ and Ox-eye Daisy); another will be blue
and red (_Salvia pratensis_ and _Lychnis diocia_); another, yellow
and pink (the Globe-Flower and the Bistort); while another will be a
close, irregular mixture of some score or more of colours, with no
one in particular predominating. Although Nature in her wildness is
almost invariably “happy,” it is only natural that some of her results
should be happier than others; and it is well to take note of the
best she can do. Personally, I find her happiest when she keeps her
palette simple, painting broadly, and not indulging in Segantini-like
technique. And surely her simpler floral harmonies are among the
perpetual delights of the Alps, and incapable of being bettered by
even the most fancifully fastidious of “post-impressionists”? What
could be more charming than, for instance, the simple combination of
pale yellow and paper-white, or of rosy-pink and rich mauve when, as
is quite usual, Biscutella and Cerastium, or _Saponaria ocymoides_
and _Calamintha alpina_ are luxuriating around and among the rocks;
or when blue Myosotis and white Paradise Lily, or canary-coloured
Crepis and sky-blue Veronica, or white Potentilla and rosy-mauve
Geranium, or vivid orange Arnica and lilac Orchids are blooming in
important numbers side by side among the grasses? I do not advocate
formality—the formality depicted in Andrew Marvell’s lines:
“See how the flowers, as at parade,
Under their colours stand display’d”:
which suggests the careful horrors of bedding-out. A certain
negligence is imperative; we may be studious as regards effect, but
we must not show it. The question of colour-grouping is certainly one
worthy of careful consideration; for if gardening is not exactly an
art that “doth mend Nature,” it is, at all events, a selective art,
picking and choosing of Nature’s best and bringing this together
within special confines, there to show in a series of close-knit
_tableaux_ that which wild Nature spreads out far and wide among much
that, æsthetically, is of secondary “happiness.”
L’ENVOI
“But none has hope like thine!
Thou through the fields and through the woods dost stray,
Roaming the country-side, a truant boy,
Nursing thy project in unclouded joy,
And every doubt long blown by time away.”
MATTHEW ARNOLD, _The Scholar-Gipsy_.
Pen- and brush-craft pale their ineffectual fires before the beauty
of Alpine grass-lands, and flawful and halting has been the manner
of presenting my subject; but I hope a sufficient glimpse of its
fascination and importance will have been caught to raise enthusiasm
to the point of making amends for a neglectful past. Whatever may
be the verdict upon the question of introducing Swiss floral wealth
to our meadows generally, perhaps enough has been said to make it
plain that very many of the mountain field-flowers cry aloud to be
treated _as field-flowers_ in every Alpine garden where there is
scope for, and pretensions to, completeness. And I believe that the
cry will be answered. I believe that the value of the fields, in the
economy of Alpine plant-life, has only to be placed earnestly before
conscientious gardeners and lovers of flowers for it to meet with
immediate and becoming diligence. I believe it will be seen that a
rockwork is not the first, last, and only home we may make for Alpines
in England, and that it is as unlovely as it is unjust to tar all of
them with one and the same brush and think that, because they are
called Alpines, they must necessarily be given a perch dominating the
rest of the garden. I therefore believe that one more of our cherished
conventionalities will soon be relegated to the “Valhalla of bad
taste.”
We “are still looking through a kaleidoscope at ever-changing views,”
and “the eternal verities” have as yet by no means been sounded to
their bases. If “Badsworth” can find sufficient sanction to talk
like this of auction bridge, with how much more reason may it not be
said of gardening and the cult of Nature? It is doubtful if we have
reached much that is final in anything; certainly not in gardening.
Gardening—or flower-gardening, since that is the department with
which we are here dealing—flower-gardening is something more than
the mere growing of blossoms to please, something more than the mere
forming of a living herbarium, something more than the mere creation
or collecting of “novelties” for the sole sake of novelty; there is
something deeper and more difficult to talk about than that—something
none the less real because largely indefinable. As earnest, thinking
gardeners, our views and sentiments are not limited to a mere
toying with the soil and with attractive vegetation. We are not
children—though we ought to be, and are. I mean, we do not garden—we
do not build Alpine rockworks and plant them with gay flowers quite so
irresponsibly as children build mud-castles and stick them over with
coloured oddments. There is a significant profundity in the meanest of
our efforts—even in the building of mud-castles; and in the maturer
effort of gardening it is only natural that this should be of richer
meaning.
Gardening is a saving grace in any nation. It would be invidious to
name examples; enough to say that nations with marked propensities
for gardening figure prominently in past and present history. Such
nations, though “insurgent sons,” are necessarily less so than they
would otherwise be; for they live nearer to the truth of things,
nearer to Nature. Gardening touches well-springs of being, and helps
materially towards the moral advancement of a race. It is affected by
the same fundamental “psychic” influence as is painting, or, indeed,
any other of our kindred enthusiasms. In it we are striving, not
so much to express Nature, as to express ourselves through Nature;
not so much to transcribe Nature line for line, as to translate—as
creatures who consider ourselves so much apart from, so much above,
Nature—what we think we feel, perhaps see, and almost certainly dream
in her. And far be it from me to aver that we are not striving even
to supplant Nature—seemingly a mad ambition, for in the end, do as we
will, Nature, and nothing but Nature, has found expression. Yet it
is not quite as mad an ambition as a first inspection would lead us
to suppose. Indeed, it is good, if not actually great; for it is the
biggest of the many bunches of carrots dangling in front of the human
animal’s nose, inducing him to keep “pegging away.”
[Illustration: The WILLOW GENTIAN (_G. asclepiadea_) and the Alpine
Cotton Grass (_Eriophorum Scheuchzeri_). ]
Independent and original as we may consider ourselves, we yet from
time to time have to turn and take our cue from Nature. She, after
all, is the source at which we must refresh our jaded imaginations;
she is the storehouse from which we must draw new blood, new
energy, new ideas; she instigates our ideals and holds the cause and
means for inspiration; without her promptings, in fact, we should
go bankrupt. In the Buddhist “Sankhya-Karika” we read how, “like a
_danseuse_ who retires from the dance after she has shown herself
to the crowd, Nature retires after she has shown herself in all her
splendour to the soul”—_after she has shown herself to the soul_. The
aim of the best art is not slavishly to copy Nature, but to catch and
translate the dreams she suggests.
“Stoop to earth’s service, and behold
All heaven shall blossom into gold.”
We may paint as much as we like “from imagination” or “inner
consciousness,” but if Nature were not all the time posing at our
elbow, and if we did not from time to time cast covert glances at her
as our model, our picture would never be “inspired”; it would either
harp tediously upon ancient themes and methods, or else “advance” into
sheer chaotic incoherence.
And so it is that we have now come, I think, to a time in the history
and use of Alpine rockworks when we must turn again to Nature for
fresh inspiration, for improved ideals. The time is passing when
Alpine conditions were held to be sufficiently represented by the
rock-fortresses of the Alps,
“And all the garrisons were flowers.”
Of course, these garrisons are, and must always remain, the most
prominent and unique of vegetation’s Alpine marvels, but they cannot
properly be thought to speak for all; they are, as it were, the
militant _éclaireurs_ set upon the craggy heights and watching over
the peaceful hosts of their fellows upon the fields. As is the way in
all our activities, we hug a truth a long time before becoming aware
that it is not the whole truth. Perception has small beginnings,
advance is slow, and exaggeration, meantime, is the very breath of
progress. We ill-use a truth by over-kindness; our ecstasy forces it
to lie. We dwell extravagantly upon it until it becomes partially
false; then we move on. And this, I find, is what has happened, and
is happening, in the case of Alpine rockworks. We have for long dwelt
alone with them as with the last word upon the housing of Alpine
plants; we have been so absorbed in them as the whole truth, that we
have seen no need, even no possibility, for further helpful inquiry
of Nature. But the time has now arrived when our truth is revealing
itself as only a half-truth, and, turning to glance again at our model
for a fresh advance in inspiration, we notice in her a feature which
had previously escaped us—the fields.
* * * * *
“Many people enter God’s Temple through the doorway of Beauty”; and
upon this count, also, the fields of the Alps are of obvious import.
I venture to think that an Alpine field, with all its concomitant
“accident” and consequent variety, will have more to say to a larger
number of men and women than will a rockwork alone; I venture to
think that a person who would not stop longer than to patronise a
rockwork, would stand arrested and absorbed before the grass-lands and
their varied features. To the mass of mortals who are not bespoken
specialists in higher Alpines, the meadows have no superiors in
breadth, directness, and simplicity of appeal. They are places where
the “man-in-the-street” is at once at home. They require no special
enthusiasm to make them acceptable. Their beauty is as apparent to the
“vulgar” as it is to the elect; their charm is interesting to all.
And this interest means more than mere pleasure, more than a
superficial tickling of the senses. It entails a mint of meaning for
the soul. Yes, the soul. No gardener, no Nature-lover, need be shy
of admitting he has a soul; for it is precisely this which makes
Nature-lovers of us all, precisely this which plays so big a part in
our admiration of the fields. “Breathes there a man with soul so dead”
who will not linger lovingly over mountain meadows tossed or rolling
like a multi-coloured sea, with sunlight playing amid the blues,
mauves, reds, and yellows, breaking these into endless intermediary
tints; and with butterflies seemingly in such light-hearted flight,
skipping and flitting blithely, airily, for all the world like flowers
come suddenly to sentient life? Breathes there a man who will not
find in these meadows and their teeming gaiety “a vitalising passion,
calling to life the shrouded thoughts and unsuspected forces of the
heart”?
From Crocus to “Crocus”; from the first pale, dainty flush of spring
to the last full flush of autumn; from the shy and hesitating youth
of the year to the time when all at length “is rounded with a sleep,”
these meadows are an intimate joy and refreshment. Nature herself sets
so much store by them that when they become, as they must become,
recognised components of our Alpine gardens, it shall be said she
“Now was almost won
To think her part was done,
And that her reign had here its last fulfilling.
She knew such harmony alone
Could hold all Heaven and Earth in happier unison.”
“Farewell! farewell to the field,
Farewell to the sunny lawn!”
SCHILLER, _William Tell_.
INDEX
A
_Achillea nana_, 80
_Aconitum Lycoctonum_, 173
” _napellus_, 121, 173
” _paniculatum_, 173
_Adenostyles albifrons_, 122, 173
_Adonis aestivalis_, 69
_Ajuga pyramidalis_, 31, 77, 83
Alchemilla, 74
” _alpina_, 83
” _vulgaris_, 83
Alpine Auricula, 76
” Brier, 85, 105
” Bugle, 83
” Clover, 54, 170, 171
” Crocus, 44
” Crowfoot, 31, 44
” Eglantine, 67, 85, 105, 121
” Flax, 84
” Forget-me-not, 84
” Knotweed, 85
” Lettuce, 122
” London Pride, 176
” Plantain, 76
” Polygala, 31
_Anemone alpina_, 17, 32
” _narcissiflora_, 63, 83
” _sulphurea_, 83, 128
_Antennaria dioica_, 84
_Anthericum Liliago_, 84, 164
” _ramosum_, 84
_Anthyllis vulneraria_, 77, 84, 116, 170
Antirrhinum, 78
_Arabis alpina_, 174
Arnica, 72, 116, 129, 177
Artemisia, 77
Asparagus, 137
_Aspidium Lonchitis_, 175
_Aster alpinus_, 89, 124
_Astrantia major_, 120, 129, 154, 161, 176
” _ minor_, 120
_Atriplex deltoidea_, 81
Autumn Crocus, 130, 134-146
Azalea, 103
B
_Bartsia alpina_, 30, 57, 117
Bastard Toadflax, 116
Bearded Campanula, 54
” Harebell, 81
Bell-Gentian, 57, 70, 114
Berberis, 144, 172
Bilberry, 129, 144
Bindweed, 157, 166
Bird Cherry, 173
Bird’s-eye Primula, 46, 135
Bird’s-foot Trefoil, 84
_Biscutella lævigata_, 31, 57, 84, 115, 164, 177
Bistort, 63, 74, 85, 115, 120, 164, 176
Bladder Campion, 85, 165, 167
Bluebell, 152
Blue Bottle, 74, 84
Box-leaved Polygala, 24
_Bramo-Vaco_, 139
Brown Gentian, 120
Bugle, 31, 77
_Bulbocodium vernum_, 146, 163
Butcher’s Broom, 137
Buttercup, 115, 120, 149, 152, 165, 166
Butterfly Orchis, 72, 85, 104
C
_Calamintha alpina_, 31, 116, 174, 177
_Caltha palustris_, 30, 166
_Campanula barbata_, 72, 81, 115, 170
” _persicifolia_, 122, 170
” _boidalis_, 84, 115, 158, 160, 165, 176
” _rotundifolia_, 84, 165
” _Scheuchzeri_, 115, 127
” _spicata_, 121, 170
” _thyrsoides_, 121
Campion, 84, 85
_Cardamine resedifolia_, 80
_Carduus defloratus_, 170
_Carlina acaulis_, 122
” _vulgaris_, 122
Carthusian Pink, 84
Catchfly, 84
Cat’s-ear, 84
_Centaurea montana_, 84, 164
_Centaurea nigra_, 165
” _scabiosa_, 120
” _uniflora_, 120, 165
_Cephalanthera ensifolia_, 85, 173
” _pallens_, 173
” _rubra_, 85, 173
_Cerastium arvense_, 84
_Char de Venus_, 121
Cherry-tree, 17
_Chrysanthemum leucanthemum_, 165
Cinquefoil, 77, 85
Clary, 85, 154
Clover, 72
_Cœloglossum viridis_, 85
_Colchicum alpinum_, 140-146
” _autumnalis_, 130, 134-143, 160, 165
_Colchique_, 139
Coltsfoot, 45
Columbine, 164
Corn, 118
Cornflower, 69, 99
_Coronilla varia_, 122
Cowslip, 23, 149, 164
_Crepis aurea_, 115
Crocus, 23, 24, 71
” _nudiflorus_, 137
” _sativus_, 139
” _vernus_, 163
Cudweed, 84
Currant, 17
D
Daffodil, 17, 32, 152, 163
Daisy, 149, 166
Dandelion, 19, 150, 166
Daphne, 109
Dendrobium, 75
_Dianthus Carthusianorum_, 84, 122
” _neglectus_, 80
_Dianthus superbus_, 121, 173
” _sylvestris_, 121, 122
_Digitalis ambigua_, 121
” _lutea_, 122
Dog Rose, 108, 129
Dyer’s Weed, 85
E
_Echium vulgare_, 84
Edelweiss, 35-39, 124
Eglantine, 17, 144
Epilobium, 80
_Epipactis atrorubens_, 173
” _latifolia_, 173
_Eritrichium nanum_, 42
_Eryngium alpinum_, 170
_Euphrasia alpina_, 84
” _minima_, 84
” _officinalis_, 72, 73, 84
Everlasting Pea, 67, 169
_Exobasidium rhododendri_, 108
Eyebright, 73, 84
F
Fair Maid of France, 85, 115
False Lily-of-the-Valley, 176
Felwort, 41
Field Mouse-ear, 84
Field Gentian, 120
” Poppy, 68, 99
Flax, 122
Foxglove, 152
French Willow, 80
Frog Orchis, 85
G
Gagea, 163
Garlic, 137
_Gentiana amarella_, 41
_Gentiana asclepiadea_, 90
” _brachyphylla_, 141
” _campestris_, 115, 120
” _excisa_, 24, 89, 157
” _nivalis_, 117, 157
” _punctata_, 120
” _purpurea_, 120
” _verna_, 24, 30, 35-47, 57, 141, 157, 175
_Geranium, sylvaticum_, 84, 115, 154, 160, 164, 177
_Geum montanum_, 24, 31
” _rivale_, 84
Globe-Flower, 23, 56, 85, 164, 176
_Globularia cordifolia_, 84
Goat’s Beard, 173
Golden Thistle, 122
Grass-of-Parnassus, 127
Greater Astrantia, 82
Grimm the Collier, 120
Groundsel, 80
_Gymnadenia albida_, 104, 116
” _conopsea_, 85, 164
” _odoratissima_, 85
_Gypsophila repens_, 174
H
_Habenaria bifolia_, 85
” _chlorantha_, 173
” _viridis_, 85
Hard-heads, 120, 165
Hawkweed, 82, 120
Hawthorn, 152
Heather, 102, 128, 129
_Helianthemum alpestre_, 116
” _vulgare_, 174
Helleborine, 85
Hepatica, 23
Herb Paris, 137
_Herbst-Zeitlose_, 140
_Hieracium alpinum_, 115
” _aurantiacum_, 120
_Hippocrepis comosa_, 84
Holly-fern, 175
Honeysuckle, 109, 121, 173
Horseshoe Vetch, 84
_Hypochœris maculata_, 115
” _uniflora_, 115, 165
Hyssop, 122
J
Jacob’s Ladder, 128, 154
_Jasione montana_, 122, 170
_Juniperus nana_, 172
Jupiter’s Distaff, 121
K
Kidney Vetch, 77, 84
King of the Alps, 42
Knapweed, 84
Knee Holly, 137
Knobweed, 120
Knotweed, 85
L
Laburnum, 17
Ladies’ Fingers, 84
Lady’s Mantle, 83
” Smock, 80
_Laitue des Alpes_, 122
Larkspur, 69
_Laserpitium latifolium_, 173
_Lathyrus heterophyllus_, 84, 170
” _luteus_, 173
” _sylvestris_, 84
_Le Bas du Bon Dieu_, 41
_Leontopodium alpinum_, 35-39
Leopard’s Bane, 122
Lesser Foxglove, 122
_Lilium croceum_, 17, 173
” _Martagon_, 173
Lily-of-the-Valley, 137
_Linaria alpina_, 77
_Linum alpinum_, 84, 164, 170
” _tenuifolium_, 122, 170
Lœlia, 75
_Lonicera alpigena_, 173
” _nigra_, 173
_Lotus corniculatus_, 84
Lousewort, 85
_Lychnis dioica_, 84, 161, 164, 176
” _Flos-cuculi_, 84, 164
” _viscaria_, 84, 161
M
Marguerite, 75
Marsh-Marigold, 30, 46, 57, 71, 166, 167
Martagon Lily, 116, 120, 165, 173
Masterwort, 120, 154
May Lily, 176
Meadow Clary, 85, 154, 165
” Rue, 121
” Saffron, 139
” Sage, 85, 154
Mealy Primrose, 46, 56, 71, 135
_Mespilus oxyacantha_, 79
_Meum athamanticum_, 173
Micheli’s Daisy, 30, 57, 72
Milkwort, 85
Monkshood, 121, 169
Mountain Cornflower, 84
” Everlasting Pea, 84
” Geum, 71
_Mulgedium alpinum_, 122, 173
Mullein, 122
_Muscari comosum_, 84, 164
Myosotis, 24, 177
” _alpestris_, 84, 164
” _palustris_, 116
N
Naked Boy, 139
” Lucy, 139
_Narcissus poeticus_, 17, 32, 158, 164
” _Pseudo-narcissus_, 163
Nettle, 166
_Nigritella nigra_, 85
Nottingham Catchfly, 167
O
Oak-apple, 108
_Œil-de-chat_, 41
Onion, 137
_Onobrychis viciæfolia_, 84, 170
Ononis, 93
” _natrix_, 122, 170
” _rotundifolia_, 122
Orache, 81
Orchids, 23, 72, 85, 116, 120, 149, 158, 166, 177
_Orchis conopsea_, 164
” _latifolia_, 85
” _maculata_, 85, 164
” _mascula_, 164
” _Morio_, 164
” _ustulata_, 85
_Ornithogalum nutans_, 164
” _pyrenaicum_, 137
” _umbellatum_, 138, 163
_Orobus luteus_, 121
Ox-eye Marguerite, 116, 165, 166, 176
Oxlip, 164
P
Pansy, 69
Paradise Lily, 63, 72, 85, 158, 164, 177
_Paradisia Liliastrum_, 85, 158, 164
Parsley-fern, 175
Parsnip, 152
_Pedicularis tuberosa_, 31, 85
Pheasant-eye Narcissus, 32, 164
_Phyteutma betonicifolium_, 54, 85, 115, 158, 165, 167
” _hemisphæricum_, 116
” _Micheli_, 116
” _orbiculare_, 85, 115, 165
” _spicata_, 154
_Pimpinella magna rosea_, 85
Pinguicula, 30
Pink, 169
Pinkwort, 80
_Plantago alpina_, 54
Plantain, 157, 166
_Plantanthera bifolia_, 85
” _chlorantha_, 173
_Poa alpina_, 171
_Polemonium cœruleum_, 127, 154, 165
_Polygala alpestris_, 85
” _vulgaris_, 85
_Polygonatum verticillatum_, 173
_Polygonum Bistorta_, 85, 164
_Polystichum Filix-mas_, 175
Poppy, 68, 99
_Potentilla rupestris_, 31, 77, 85, 115, 164, 177
Primrose, 23, 37, 46, 93, 152
_Primula farinosa_, 30, 62, 167
_Prunus avium_, 173
Q
Queen of the Fields, 121
R
Radish, 118
Ragged Robin, 84, 164
Rampion, 54, 85, 115, 120, 154, 165, 167
_Ranunculus aconitifolius_, 85, 115, 164, 167
” _acris_, 165, 166
” _bulbosus_, 165, 166
Raspberry, 17
Red Catchfly, 84, 164
_Reseda luteola_, 85
Rest-Harrow, 93
_Rhinanthus angustifolius_, 85
_Rhododendron ferrugineum_, 41, 89, 102-113, 117, 129, 144, 172
” _hirsutum_, 102-113
” _ponticum_, 102
Robin’s Pincushion, 108
_Rosa alpina_, 85, 105, 172
” _pomifera_, 172
_Rosage_, 106
_Rose des Alpes_, 106
_Rue des Alpes_, 106
S
Saffron, 139
_Safra dès prats_, 139
Sage, 77, 85
Sainfoin, 84, 170
St. Bruno’s Lily, 85, 114
_Salvia glutinosa_, 121, 173
” _pratensis_, 69, 74, 77, 85, 115, 154, 158, 160, 164, 176
_Sambucus racemosa_, 172
_Saponaria ocymoides_, 31, 77, 116, 174
_Saxifraga cuneifolia_, 176
Saxifrage, 169
_Scabiosa lucida_, 85, 115
Scilla, 23
” _bifolia_, 163
Sedum, 77, 129, 169, 170
Sempervivum, 169, 170
_Senecio Doronicum_, 80, 122
_Sibbaldia procumbens_, 54
_Silene Cucubalus_, 165, 167
” _inflata_, 85
” _nutans_, 167
” _rupestris_, 116, 174
_Smilacina bifolia_, 176
Snake-root, 85
Snakeweed, 164
Snapdragon, 78
Soapwort, 77
Soldanella, 23, 24, 71, 89, 175
Solomon’s Seal, 173
Sorrel, 151, 166
Speedwell, 9, 73
_Spirœa Aruncua_, 121, 173
Star of Bethlehem, 137, 163
Strawberry, 17
Stonecrop, 77
Sulphur Anemone, 31, 34, 46, 53, 54
Sylvan Geranium, 63
T
_Thalictrum aquilegifolium_, 121, 169, 173
_Thesium alpinum_, 72, 74, 116
Thyme, 118
Toadflax, 77
Trefoil Valerian, 85
_Trifolium alpinum_, 54, 170, 171
_Trollius europæus_, 85, 164
_Tue-chien_, 139
Turk’s-cap Lily, 121
U
Umbelliferæ, 116, 165
_Umbilicaria virginis_, 46
V
_Vache_, 139
_Valeriana montana_, 122
” _tripteris_, 85
Vanilla Orchis, 85
_Veilleuse_, 139
_Veillotte_, 139
_Veratrum album_, 116, 158
_Verbascum phlomoides_, 122, 170
Vernal Gentian, 35-47, 58, 72, 104, 127
_Veronica Chamædrys_, 73
” _saxatilis_, 116, 171
” _spicata_, 158
” _urticæfolia_, 170
_Vicia onobrychioides_, 121, 170
_Viola alpina_, 175
” _calcarata_, 32, 41, 53, 89, 157
” _tricolor_, 69
Violet, 23, 164
_Violon_, 139
Viper’s Bugloss, 84
W
Water Avens, 84
Weld, 85
Willow Gentian, 90
” Herb, 129
Wood Anemone, 23
” Campion, 84
” Crane’s-bill, 84, 154, 165
” Everlasting Pea, 84
” Sorrel, 175
Wormwood, 77
Y
Yarrow, 80
Yellow Eyebright, 84
” Foxglove, 121
” Gentian, 116
” Lousewort, 85
” Rattle, 85, 116
” Violet, 45, 176
PRINTED BY
HAZELL, WATSON AND VINEY, LD.,
LONDON AND AYLESBURY.
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