G. Flemwell

“ 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! ”

“ Of goodly and varied company, they are such important units in the rich composition of most Alpine meadows, and, where they grow, they form so compact a groundwork of colouring and so admirable a setting for many of the taller flowers, that it were, indeed, a dereliction of memory to overlook them! What could be lovelier than a wide area of these Clovers in June sown with lilac, rose-tinted, and white Orchids, deep, lustrous-blue Phyteumas, paper-white Paradise Lilies, and infinite hosts of the bright and fascinating little Euphrasia? ”

“ 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. ”

“ To come upon this inimitable flower spread in serried numbers over a large square of ground on a steep slope at an altitude of over 4,000 feet, was not a little surprising. Waving its battalions of fiery blossoms against the grey mist-filled valley beneath, with old sun and wind-stained châlets standing just beside, it was an irresistible motif for a painter. Seemingly as much at home as in any field in England, it appeared of even greater brilliance than with us—having, perhaps, caught something of the humour of the Gentian. ”

“ 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? ”

“ 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? ”

“ 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. ”

“ PARADISIA LILIASTRUM, the Paradise or St. Bruno’s Lily.
The fields are bald, the slopes are shorn or ragged, and the grass that is left standing is looking for the most part very “seedy.” The golden-flowered, pink-flowered, and white-flowered Sedums are blossoming upon the field-rocks; the Willow-Herb is lighting up the rough and stony places with its rosy-red spikes; the Bilberry’s fruit is turning a dusty blue and its foliage here and there is showing promise of a fiery autumn ”

“ And as the merely emotional value of these fields is immense, their appeal is quite as general as it is particular, perhaps even more so; for the emotional qualities of anything are more acceptable to the man-in-the-street than are its precise and reasoned quantities. And, just as there are far fewer musicians within the ranks of executants than outside, so there are more flower-lovers and lovers of floral beauty outside the ranks of botany and gardening than there are within. Thus amid these fields the plain, expansive man or woman need be in no fear of ennui. ”

“ I am unable to think that either myself or a bee can determine the white form of some blue Gentian, some rose-pink Ononis (Rest-Harrow) , or some yellow Primrose. If colour is not in the flower, then neither is it in a lady’s dress, nor in a nation’s flag, nor in a picture. What reason should the world and his wife have for unanimously declaring a dress to be brown and purple if, in reality, it is no colour at all—if, that is to say, it is black, or the highest refinement of black, which is white? ”

“ Looking at the close-set masses of blossom, it is difficult to realise into what these slopes and fields will develop later on. There seems no room for a crop of hayfield grass. Amid this neat and packed abundance there seems no possible footing for a wealth of greater luxuriance. And yet, in a few weeks’ time, these fields will have so changed as to be scarcely recognisable. What we see at present, despite its ubiquity, is but a moiety of all they can produce. June and July will border upon a plethora of wonders, though they will not perhaps be rivals to the exquisite charm of May. ”

“ 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. ”

“ If spring is reckoned pure below, among “the foul miasmas that cling to the lowest bottoms of reeking valleys,” how much purer must it not be reckoned under Alpine skies! The amelioration is already marked after we have risen a few hundred feet from the plains. Our minds climb with our bodies, both attuning themselves to the increasing purity of our surroundings, until at some 5,000 feet we feel, to use a homely expression, as different as chalk from cheese. And nothing aids more potently in this attunement than do the fields of springtime blossoms. ”

“ One catches the sound of more than two voices in the discussion: one hears not only the several plaints of botanist and flower-lover, but also the claims of the champion of folk-lore, the mere amateur gardener, the uncompromising patriot, and the incorrigible sentimentalist. And something in reason is said by each one of them—although honours are not so easy as to enable one to call it a case of six of one and half-a-dozen of the other. For, perhaps, those who strive for a langue bleu in this domain and choose Latin have the weightier cause at heart. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Is there not proof abundant of Nature’s “profuse indifference to mankind?” Why, then, should Man assume that all things are made for him? why, in his small, lordly way, should he say—as he is for ever saying—“The sun, the moon, the stars, have their raison d’être in Me?” In a sense he is right, but not in the arrogant sense he so much presumes. All things help to make him. The sun, moon, and stars are for him, inasmuch as he would not be what he is—he would not, probably, be Man—did they not exist. ”

“ The Gentians have all but gone, the Anemone also, and Primula farinosa has become most rare. [Pg 63] In their places stand the Globe-Flower, the Bistort, the Paradise Lily (barely open) , the Sylvan Geranium, the blue Centaurea, and the pale yellow Biscutella, while the last blossoms of Anemone sulphurea have been joined by the exquisite blush-tinted heads of Anemone narcissiflora. It is as though some curtain had rolled swiftly up upon another landscape—one which, as we are but human, we must applaud more rapturously than we did the last. ”