The Flower-Fields of Alpine Switzerland: An Appreciation and a Plea. G. Flemwell

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.

      “Why bloom’st thou so?” asks the poet of these flowers—

      “Why bloom’st thou so

      In solitary loveliness, more fair

      In this thy artless beauty, than the rare

      And costliest garden-plant?”

      The question has been answered, or, at any rate, answered in important part, and far more truthfully than by any blind, patronising remark about “wasted beauty.” Wasted! It is an accusation which the flowers should hurl at us! Wasted? Yes; wasted, in so far as we do not yet take advantage of the Alpine spring; wasted, in so far as we arrive only in late July or early August!

      Nor should our praise be counted amongst surprises. Champex’s fields bear witness to it being no mere idle adulation. On the flat damp grass-land, intersected by sparkling glacier streams, which stretches away to the north of the lake, great and brilliant groups of Caltha palustris (only the common Marsh-Marigold, it is true, but of how much more luscious, brilliant hue than down upon some lowland marsh) lie upon a vast rosy carpet of Primula farinosa, effectively broken here and there by the rich purple tints of Bartsia alpina and the ruddier hues of Pedicularis. And this wondrous wealth of yellow and rose is found again on the extensive sunny slopes to the south of the lake; but here Gentiana verna asserts its bright blue presence amongst the Primula, and the effect is even more astonishingly gay than it is to the north. Like Count Smorltorks “poltics,” it “surprises by himself.”

      On these southern slopes, too, are quantities of Micheli’s Daisy, enlivening still more with their glistening whiteness the beautiful colour-scheme. There are also colonies of the two Pinguiculas, mauve and creamy-white; also of the quaint Alpine Crowfoot and of the yet more quaint, æsthetically tinted Ajuga pyramidalis—the most arresting of the Bugles—and of the demure little Alpine Polygala, varying from blue (the type) through mauve to reddish-pink, even to white. Here, also, is the Sulphur Anemone just unfolding the earliest of its clear citron-coloured blossoms. But to see this Anemone to fullest advantage we must turn to the drier pastures to the east and north of the lake, where it is scattered in endless thousands amongst sheets of Gentiana verna and excisa and a profusion of the yellow Pedicularis (tuberosa), the white Potentilla (rupestris), the golden Geum (montanum), the purple Calamintha (alpina), the canary-yellow Biscutella (lævigata), the rosy-red Saponaria (ocymoides), and many another of the earlier pasture-flowers. And by the side of all this ravishing young life and colour are the still remaining avalanches of piled-up frozen snow—grim reminders of what wild riot winter makes upon these pastures whilst the flowers are sleeping.

      Surely, then our praise is not surprising? Surely, nowhere in the Alps in May shall we find anything more admirable or more amazingly colour-full than are these pasture-slopes and meadows of Lac Champex? In some one or other respect their equal may be found in many favoured places; in many spots we shall find most astonishing displays of other kinds of plants than we have here—of, for instance, the white Anemone alpina and the purple Viola calcarata, as on the slopes of the Chamossaire above Villars-sur-Ollon (though the Viola is in quantity near Champex, in the Val d’Arpette, in June), or of the Pheasant-eye Narcissus, as at Les Avants and Château d’Oex, and the Daffodil, as at Champéry and Saas; but, taking Champex’s floral wealth as a whole, it can have few, if any superiors in point of abundance and colour at this early season. Mindful of what Mr. Reginald Farrer has said of Mont Cenis towards the end of June, we may safely declare that the Viola and Gentian clothed slopes of that district are not the only slopes in the Alps which might be “visible for miles away.”

      EARLY JUNE FIELDS beyond Praz de Fort in the Val Ferret, backed by the Groupe du Grand Saint-Bernard et du Grand Golliaz.

      Perhaps some more substantial idea of these fields at this season may be gathered from the pictures facing pages iii and 3; but these transcriptions, though to the uninitiated they may appear reckless with regard to truth, are really far from adequate. Seeing the thing itself must, in this case, alone bring entire belief and understanding. “Colour, the soul’s bridegroom,” is so abounding, so fresh, light, joyful, and enslaving, that, after all has been said and done to picture it, one sits listless, dejected and despairing over one’s tame and lifeless efforts; one feels that it must be left to speak for itself in its own frank, dreamland language—language at once both elusive and comprehensible. The soul of things is possessed of an eloquent and secret code which is every whit its own; and the soul of these fields is no exception. In spite of Wordsworth, there is, and there must be, “need of a remoter charm”; there is, and there must be, an “interest unborrowed from the eye”; and it is just this vague, appealing “something”—this “something” so real as to transcend what is known as reality—which speaks to us and invades us in the bright and intimate presence of these hosts of Alpine flowers.

      In rural parts of England spring is said to have come when a maiden’s foot can cover seven daisies at once on the village green. Why, when spring had come here, on these Alpine meadows, I was putting my foot (albeit of goodlier proportions than a maiden’s) upon at least a score of Gentians! Whilst painting the study of Sulphur Anemones (facing page 96) about May 20, my feet, camp-stool, and easel were perforce crushing dozens of lovely flowers—flowers which in England would have been fenced about with every sort of reverence. But sacrifice is the mot d’ordre of a live and useful world; worship at any shrine is accompanied by some “hard dealing”; and, sadly as it went against the grain, there was no gentler way in which I could effect my purpose.

      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.