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We have no soldanellas and auriculas, and Alpine cowslips, no brilliant gentians and anemones. We have one very stupid white gentian; but it is, to say the least of it, uninteresting to a casual observer. We have violets, very like those at home, but they are small and white, and have no scent.
The soldanellas do the same, but not till late in March, and with them come gentians and the whole glory of the Alpine Spring has begun. By this time the Ski-er has to oil and put away his Skis or climb to the glaciers and higher snow fields. A wonderful experience alternating between Spring and Winter as he changes his levels.
The latter end of May is the time when spring begins in the high Alps. Wherever sunlight smiles away a patch of snow, the brown turf soon becomes green velvet, and the velvet stars itself with red and white and gold and blue. You almost see the grass and lilies grow. First come pale crocuses and lilac soldanellas.
Lovely as these larger flowers of the higher Alps are, they are excelled in fascination by the delicate blue flowers of the Soldanellas, like little fringed foolscaps, by the brilliant little red and purple Alpine snap-dragon, and by the cushion-forming growths of saxifrages and other minute plants which encrust the rocks and bear, closely set in their compact, green, velvet-like foliage, tiny flowers as brilliant as gems.
But the rocks here are crowded with rare Alpine flowers delicate golden auriculas with powdery leaves and stems, pale yellow cowslips, imperial purple saxifrages, soldanellas at the edge of lingering patches of the winter snow, blue gentians, crocuses, and the frail, rosy-tipped ranunculus, called glacialis. Their blooming time is brief.
Then as we sat upon the crags, tufted with soldanellas and auriculas, we could see a fleecy vapour gliding upward from the hollows of the mountain, very thin and pale, yet dense enough to blot the landscape to the south and east from sight. It rose with an imperceptible motion, as the Oceanides might have soared from the sea to comfort Prometheus in the tragedy of Æschylus.
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