Alpine plant

“ Yet, like the Arctic plants, they have rich, deep, and brilliant colours.
A queer point is that they have got so accustomed to this stormy and perilous existence that it is extremely difficult to grow them in a garden. Like mountaineers, they dwindle and pine away in the richer soil and softer air of the low grounds.
To make an Alpine garden, rocks and stones must be arranged with pockets and hollows, like natural crevices and basins, between them. Rich leaf-mould must be placed in these hollows. There must be good drainage, and as much sunlight as one can possibly get. ”

“ During at least half of the year owing to the white coverlet of snow, all activity in the Alpine plant world ceases so that the production of flowers and seeds, indeed all the vital processes of the plants must be crowded into the few months when the ground is clear. ”

“ The chief difficulty in growing Alpine plants in our climate is not the cold but the excessive moisture of winter, which tends to rot their roots, and from which they are protected in their native home by their snowy covering. Our object should be to reproduce, as far as possible, in our gardens the conditions under which the plants grow in the high Alps. For the rockery a porous stone will be required, such as limestone or sandstone, and it is essential to select a kind that does not crumble with the frost. ”

“ This plant is fairly common in the Alps and grows in dry stony places, especially amongst the boulders of dried-up torrent beds and beside some of the streams; with some of these it descends towards the plains. Like not a few of the less common Alpine plants, where it is found at all, it is usually met with in great abundance. The flowers which open out in July are of great beauty, and their arrangements to prevent self-pollination are of considerable interest. ”

“ What do I call an alpine plant? Why, one that has its habitat above the limit of trees—mainly—though it may run down lower along streams. But in a dry region, where forest has no fair chance, we might need to mend the definition.
Upon your paper, I got a few notes—offhand, by references.
I premise that in New England we have two places where several alpine plants are stranded at lower levels than they ought, peculiar conditions of configuration and shelter having preserved them, while the exposed higher grounds have lost them. They are Willoughby Mountain and the Notch of Mt. ”

“ Where the plants were able to grow at all they became, in most cases, stunted and dwarfed. The Jerusalem Artichoke, for example, which forms a tall leafy stem like a sunflower in the plains, became a short stumpy plant with leaves arranged in a rosette at its base. Generally speaking, the plants developed a better marked underground stem, and thicker, darker green leaves than the same species grown under more ordinary conditions.
One of the principal characteristics of Alpine plants is the extensive development of the rootstock and underground stem. ”

“ A little above the point where the timber disappears entirely, commences a region of astonishing beauty, and of great interest on account of its productions. The [17] intervals of soil are sometimes extensive, and covered with a carpet of low but brilliantly-flowering alpine plants. Most of these have either matted procumbent stems, or such as, including the flower, rarely rise more than an inch in height. In many of them the flower is the most conspicuous and the largest part of the plant, and in all the colouring is astonishingly brilliant. ”

“ In planting out one has to be careful not to curl up the roots, and it is wise to sprinkle the plant with water two or three times a day for the first week or so. Alpine plants should never be manured. It should be remembered that mountain plants grow slowly, and though very many species can be successfully cultivated, the Houseleeks and Saxifrages are likely to give the best results with a minimum of trouble. ”

“ The grassy slopes of the summit are covered with a luxuriant herbage of Potentillæ, Labiatæ, Gentianaceæ, Epilobium, Polygonum, and Anemone, while a few stunted bushes of Quercus semicarpifolia, a simple-leaved Pyrus, and a willow, are the only shrubby vegetation. The forest, however, rises close to the base of the cliffs on the western face, and contains all the species common on the ascent of the mountain, the vegetation of the summit being in no respect peculiar, not even in early spring exhibiting any truly alpine plant. ”

“ Most of the alpines are low and often tufted plants, and bloom in a spring temperature. In our long hot seasons, the alpine-garden may be expected to be dormant during much of the summer, unless other rock-loving plants are colonized in it. Alpine plants are of many kinds. They are specially to be found in the genera arenaria, silene, diapensia, primula, saxifraga, arabis, aubrietia, veronica, campanula, gentiana. They comprise a good number of ferns and many little heaths.
A good rock-garden of any kind does not have the stones piled merely on the surface ”

“ If Alpine plants, or any considerable number of them, could be shown to belong to more ancient types, such as flourished in the later geological periods, that would afford some evidence in favour of the idea. Whether this is so or not, plant life on the mountains is almost entirely protected from the destroying hands of men with their ploughs and scythes, as well as from many grazing animals. ”

“ While many of the characteristics of Alpine flowers are to be explained as a direct result of the conditions of life at high altitudes, it is probable that the process of natural selection has also had a good deal to do with their production. One of the principal objects of the life of a flowering plant is to produce seeds. It has been shown that, generally speaking, more numerous and healthier seeds are produced when the seed-producing apparatus of a flower is fertilised by pollen from the stamens of a flower of a different plant. ”

“ They can never, of course, get very far away from the regions skirted by eternal frost, for their cup of joy must be chaliced by the snow-flake, or their beautiful life is soon ended. But if all our alpine flora have traveled from one evolutional centre, or have been "created but once in time and place," how have they managed to cross the thermal equator and spread themselves out over all the alpine regions of the globe? We call upon Mr. Darwin and Professor Gray to rise and explain. Not that we want any explanation, but that their theory of plant-migration stands sadly in need of one. ”

“ But it is in connection with their flowers that the wonderful adaptation of Alpine plants to their surroundings is perhaps best seen. The plants of high altitudes generally bear more numerous and more brightly coloured flowers than do their relatives of the plains. The low stature of the plants that bear them gives rise to the impression that the flowers of the Alps are also larger than those of lowland districts, but though undoubtedly more numerous and more crowded together they are of about the same size as those of other nearly related species. ”

“ The alpine wall-flower, cheiranthus alpinus, is a very choice little plant; it has creamy-yellow flowers, borne on stalks a few inches high, and, though each individual plant is biennial, they seed so freely that they are practically perennial. A light, dry soil and a sunny situation suits them; they will even grow on old walls, and very picturesque they look perched up on some mossy old ruin. ”

“ The mosses dying from year to year gradually give rise to those rich spongy peat-beds in which so many of our best alpine plants delight to dwell. The strong winds that occasionally sweep the high Sierra play a more important part in the distribution of special soil-beds than is at first sight recognized, carrying forward considerable quantities of sand gravel, flakes of mica, etc., and depositing them in fields and beds beautifully ruffled and embroidered and adapted to the wants of some of the hardiest and handsomest of the alpine shrubs and flowers. ”

“ The brief summer and long winter are unsuitable to the economy of annual plants; and the alpine perennials are so constructed that with the passing away of the cold, flowering and fruiting may be accomplished quickly, before winter descends again. The abundance and vividness of the flowers of alpines is almost proverbial. ”

“ If it should be objected that all these cases cover too short a time to be decisive, or at least fail in giving evidence relative to former times, alpine plants afford a proof which one can hardly expect to be surpassed. During the whole present geologic epoch they have been subjected to the never failing selection of their climate and other external conditions. They exhibit a full and striking adaptation to these conditions, but also possess the latent capacity for assuming lowland characters as soon as they are transported into such environment. ”

“ It is the Alpine herd's grass (Phleum alpinum) , a humble relation of our common herd's grass. This plant not only occurs on the White Mountains, in Arctic America, in the Canadian Mountains, from the summit of Mount Albert, in Gaspé, to the mountains of British Columbia, and on the hills of Scotland and Scandinavia, but has been found on the Mexican Cordillera and at the Straits of Magellan. The seeds of this grass may perhaps be specially suited for transportation by water, as well as by land. ”

“ The Hairy-Leaved Alpenrose
(RHODODENDRON HIRSUTUM)
The Alpenrose is the commonest and best known of all the Alpine plants. It abounds almost everywhere; were it not so it would have become practically extinct years before, for it is gathered unmercifully. Nor are the visitors to Switzerland alone responsible for this. Every Sunday throughout the summer, crowds of the native peasants, both children and adults, may be seen returning home, each bearing in his arms an immense bunch of the favourite flower, and often with a second and smaller nosegay tied round the top of his alpenstock. ”

“ The phenomena that accompany diminished pressure are the real obstacles to the cultivation of alpine plants, of which cold and the excessive climate are perhaps the most formidable. Plants that grow in localities marked by sudden extremes of heat and cold, are always very variable in stature, habit, and foliage. ”

“ Although most alpine plants are naturally exposed to the full action of sun and wind, they should be placed out in early autumn, or early spring, so as to become thoroughly established before the approach of scorching summer weather. Failing materials necessary for the construction of a rockery, many alpines are easily grown in the ordinary border, in a naturally or artificially well drained situation. Excavate to the depth of 18in., put in a layer of stones, broken bricks, &c., 6in. deep; fill up with rich fibrous loam and leaf mould, adding sufficient sand to keep the soil porous. ”

“ The shrubs of the alpine zone are mostly small and creeping, weaving themselves among the vegetation, and with low grasses and sedges forming a mat which is equally resistant to all inimical conditions. Their leaves are small, to avoid damage by wind or by excessive transpiration. In some genera—for instance, Veronica—the diminution of leaf surface accompanying more elevated habitat is very striking. ”

“ In Europe they chiefly occur in Scandinavia and the central and southern mountain ranges, whilst they are mostly absent from the intervening lowlands. Again, we find a large number of species in the mountains of Central Asia and in some of the North American mountains. Almost all species of Alpine plants, in fact, are examples of discontinuous distribution; and this, as every naturalist knows, is always, in both animals and plants, a proof of antiquity.
The glacial or Alpine flora is very old, and must have originated long before the Ice Age. ”

“ Buried often for some nine months in the year beneath the snow, the plants need must have well-stocked larders to draw upon. Sometimes, 161 even, it may be years before they see the sun and breathe the mountain air again. It is not every summer that the sun has power to rid the sheltered little Alpine valleys of the winter snow; often must a plant wait in patience for at least two years before it can bring forth flowers, and take a new supply of life from the sun. ”

“ We know that Alpine plants brought from their natural soil change their character and become hardly recognisable, and these marked modifications will reappear in many generations of plants, but as soon as the plants are taken back to grow in their natural environment they are transformed to their original Alpine forms. ”

“ Linnæus long ago observed [78] that Alpine plants, although naturally loaded with seed, produce either few or none when cultivated in gardens. But exceptions often occur: the Draba sylvestris, one of our most thoroughly Alpine plants, multiplies itself by seed in Mr. H. C. Watson’s garden, near London; and Kerner, who has particularly attended to the cultivation of Alpine plants, found that various kinds, when cultivated, spontaneously sowed themselves. [79] Many plants which naturally grow in peat-earth are entirely sterile in our gardens. ”

“ Thus we can understand the identity of many plants at points so immensely remote as on the mountains of the United States and of Europe. We can thus also understand the fact that the Alpine plants of each mountain-range are more especially related to the arctic forms living due north or nearly due north of them: for the migration as the cold came on, and the re-migration on the returning warmth, will generally have been due south and north. ”