Year: 1879

! From the Swiss Continent, Sept. q.


Every traveller in Switzerland is familiar
with the tender star-shapsd flower of this
curious plant whose sage green blossoms
are stuck into the hat of every guide, and
are collected with rare ingenuity by the inn
Fortunate little rascals who race the car
riages on the road, or starr out like rabbits
from the bushes as the pedestrian begins
his solitary climb. The plant is scarce and
very partial. Ii is found in the Engadine,
seldom in the Bernese Oberland, and has
peculiar corners and mountains that it
loves to affect. This scarcity and partiali-
ty gave to the Edelweiss a somewhat un-
healthy nororiety. The rarer 1t became
| the ssore ambitious were the excursionists
to obtain sprig.


Some years ago every cockney hat was
adorned with the curious bloom, feathered,
as it's botanical name implies, like an old
mans beard, and it was no longer sign
of patience and endurance to wear this
pretty badge that hitherto had denoted a
long climb and patient search. When
tourists began to brand their alpenstocks
down in ths valley with the name of a
mountain whose base they touched, but
whsse top they never attempted to reach,
then was Edelweiss sold by the handful at
| InterIaken. Chamouni and Grindelwald,
and the guides, porters and boys were
| tempted to rife the mountains Of their
peerless flowers. When the rage for art
green came upon us in full force, asthet-
| 10 young ladies flattered themselves that a
wreath of these soft petals would look be-
coming in the hair, and went SO far as to
appear at fancy balls in the character of
! the Alps, smothered in Edelweiss. AS for
the flower itself, it was not so courteous
and graceful as the Indian plant OF beauty,
that raises up it's head and opens at the ap-
proach of woman. On the contrary, it re.
fused to be in any way gracious at the
touch of the female botanist, and sternly
declined to be transplanted. The more
obstinate was the Edelweiss the more de-
termined became the ladies, and they pur-
chased it by the root, carefully tended it
during the journey home, nursed it across
the sea, watched it at every railroad sta
tion, and handed it to the family garden
er, in order to hear in few days that
the plant, sickening and sighiDg for its
mountain home, had refused to exist in
England with the aid of any artificial pro-
cess.


There have been only one or two very
rare and exceptional cases where the Edel-
weiss was induced to live and give forth
flowers in England, and then the result
was only obtained by system of nursing
that would have worn out the majority
of botanlsts. At last the Swiss govern
ment determined to put down law for
bidding the wholesale destruction of this
popular flower. It was rapidly disappear
ing altogether from the country, when an
enactment made it penal to take q plant up
by the roots. The dignity and importance.
of legislation gave new impetus to the
interest that was attached to the plant,
and egoing in search of the Eielweiss be-
came as attractive source of danger as!
is to be found in Switzerland. Unaccom-
panied by guides and straying from the
beaten tracks, more than one tourist has
risked bis life, and several have already
been killed in the auess.