Part 9

The Arnica

(ARNICA MONTANA)

A bright conspicuous plant is the Arnica, with its yellow star-like flower-heads. It grows in meadows, pastures, and on sunny moors, and is widely distributed in the Alps, from the lower mountain regions up to 8000 feet. It is much less common in limestone than in other districts. Four broad green leaves grow from the root in the form of a cross. In the centre of these rises the erect flower-stalk some 8 or 9 inches long, and covered with glandular hairs. On the flower-stalk are borne the one or two pairs of leaves, without stalks, and arranged opposite to one another. The flower-heads are drooping in the bud, but when they open they are large and conspicuous and of a deep yellow colour. They give forth a faint, resinous, not very pleasing, odour. The outer or ray florets of the flower-head have long projecting strap-shaped petals. Their purpose is to attract insects to the floral society, and the less conspicuous florets in the centre of the flower-head produce just as good seeds. At first but a single flower-head is formed, but later on, if the plant is vigorous, buds appear in the axils of the opposite stem-leaves, and two more flower-heads appear. This is what has happened in the two specimens here photographed, and a second pair of buds is seen in one of them. It is interesting to note that a mould-like fungus is found constantly associated with the roots of the plant. It is believed that the two plants grow together to the mutual advantage of each, the fungus assisting the Arnica to obtain nourishment from the soil, and in return receiving from it some of the organic matter manufactured from the air with the help of light. The root has a bitter aromatic taste. From it is made the tincture of Arnica, which is often applied to bruises, apparently, however, without any very considerable influence upon them.

Several other Alpine plants, the Doronicum and Aronics, for example, have bright yellow flower-heads like the Arnica, but as no similar Alpine plant has pairs of opposite leaves on the flower-stem, the recognition of the Arnica becomes a very simple matter.

ARNICA MONTANA. L.

The Arnica. Arnica. Echtes Wohlverlei.]

The Spiny Fuller’s Thistle

(CIRCIUM SPINOSISSIMUM)

(See Frontispiece)

This stately and beautiful plant is common in all parts of the Alps, but is found nowhere else. It grows in moist places in the meadows and pastures, and beside the streams, between 4000 and 7000 feet. It is generally looked upon as a noxious weed by the herdsmen, but in one or two places the upper and more succulent parts are gathered and preserved as pigs’ food for the winter.

The thick evergreen leaves, armed with formidable spines, are paler at the upper part of the stem where they surround the large brown flower-head. Usually but a single flower-head is borne by each plant, but each one produces some hundreds of seeds. Each seed has a feathery wing-like appendage, so that it may be more easily distributed by the wind. The Spiny Fuller’s Thistle is usually some 3½ or 4 feet high, as was the specimen photographed, but in high altitudes the plant is more bushy and stunted. Under these conditions it is not unlike the Stemless or Alpine Carline Thistle (Carlina acaulis), which, in spite of its name, has sometimes a stem some 8 or 10 inches long. But the Carline Thistle has a larger and more flattened flower-head, and when the flowers are in bloom they are of a purple colour, though they soon turn brown as they get dried up.

Probably the nearest relation of the plant here photographed is the Common Fuller’s Thistle (Circium oloraceum), abundant in moist places, both in the Alps and lowlands. It is a plant that would seem to be protected by its resemblance to other members of its family, for though it appears spiny, it is soft and succulent, and bears not a single prickle anywhere. The leaves, which are sparsely distributed on the slender stem, are of a dirty grey-green colour, and though as tall as its spiny relative, the plant is much less robust.

The Round-Headed Rampion

(PHYTEUMA ORBICULARE)

In England we have only two kinds of Rampion and both are rare, but in Switzerland there are no less than ten different species, with blue and white flowers, and some of them are extremely abundant. One of the commonest of the blue-flowered varieties is here photographed. It grows in mountain pastures and poor meadows between 3000 and 8000 feet, and is found not only in the Alps but all over Central Europe, though absent in the North. It flowers in July, and the size of the plant undergoes considerable variation according to the altitude at which it grows. Sometimes the flower-stalks are but 3 or 4 inches long, at others 16 or 18. The leaves, which grow from the root stock, have serrated edges, and are frequently a good deal larger than those of the specimen photographed. The methods adopted by the plant for the distribution of its pollen and the fertilisation of its seeds through the agency of insect visitors are of particular interest. Each flower of the flower-head is formed of a blue tubular structure (corolla), which is at first closed above. In the centre of this is the style covered by short hairs and surrounded by the five stamens. While still in the bud the stamens shed their pollen, which collects in the tube around the style and is retained in position by the short hairs. Now the flower opens at its tip, and while maintaining its tubular character above splits longitudinally below into five or six segments, so that linear openings are formed. The result is that when an insect settles on the flower the tubular corolla is very easily depressed, exposing the style surrounded on all sides by pollen. Any pollen that is not removed by the insect falls from the style, for the short hairs on the style by which it is held in position very soon fade. The style then splits above into three segments, exposing for the first time the sticky stigmatic surface now ready for pollination.

The Round-headed Rampion is one of the five Swiss species with rounded, not elongated, flower-heads. Three of them can at once be put aside, because they are usually much smaller plants and have less than twelve flowers to a flower-head, whereas the Round-headed Rampion has always more. Phyteuma Scheuchzeri is distinguished from this plant by its lilac flowers, longer stalked and usually broader basal leaves, and especially by the circle of leaves immediately beneath the flower-head, which are longer than the flowers themselves.

PHYTEUMA ORBICULARE. L.

The Round-headed Rampion. Raiponce à Capitules Arrondies. Kugelköpfige Rapunzel.]

The Bearded Bell-flower or Campanula

(CAMPANULA BARBATA)

Of the numerous Bell-flowers which abound in the Alps none is more quaint and beautiful than the one here photographed. The whole plant, stem, leaves, and flowers, is covered with short hairs, but around the mouth of the bell the hairs are longer and stiffer, and pure white. It is interesting to note that when cultivated in rockeries in England the hairy character of the plant almost entirely disappears. Some three to five pendent flowers are borne by each flower-stalk, all turned in the same direction. Occasionally a single flowered variety is met with, usually at a high altitude. The ordinary pale blue colour of the flower may disappear entirely, and specimens with pure white blossoms are not infrequent. The plant is found abundantly all over the Alps and Sub-Alps, in meadows and pastures, and to a less extent in open woods, from 3000 feet almost to the snowline (7000 to 9000 feet). It is usually less abundant on limestone than on other rocks. The Bearded Bell-flower is also met with in the Carpathians, Jura, southern parts of Norway, and in other mountainous districts in Europe. It is probably a native of the Alps.

No difficulty will be experienced in recognising the Bearded Campanula. No other Bell-flower has little projections between each of the five teeth of the calyx which are turned back towards the stem. Only one other Bell-flower (Campanula Zoysii), and that a species not always recognised as distinct, has a light blue corolla with long hairs around its mouth. But here there is a constriction just immediately below the opening of the bell, and the plant is smaller and very rare, and occurs only in Eastern Switzerland.

CAMPANULA BARBATA. L.

The Bearded Bell-flower or Campanula. Campanule Barbue. Bärtige Glockenblume.]

The Dwarf Hair-Bell or Bell-Flower

(CAMPANULA PUSILLA)

The photograph gives a good general idea of the tufted growth of the Dwarf Bell-flower. The plant is quite small, rarely more than 3 or 4 inches high, and forms dense close-growing tufts of some size. The smooth or hairy flower-stalks bear one to six pale blue flowers and the narrow leaves, which are most numerous and have serrated edges below. There are also short flowerless branches covered with similar leaves, and a few broader leaves with longer stalks grow directly from the root stock. These last are not well seen in the photograph. The plant is very abundant in dry rocky and sandy places, in dried up torrent-beds, by the roadside and on the tops of walls. It is found from the lower mountain region up to some 8000 feet, and descends with some of the rivers towards the plains. It is also found in the Jura and parts of the Black Forest.

The Dwarf Bell-flower will be recognised from most of the other species of Campanula which abound in Switzerland by its broad basal leaves, its narrow stem leaves, and its erect seed pod. But, unfortunately, there are three other Swiss species to which this description equally well applies. Of these the rare Campanula excisa is at once picked out by the deep rounded clefts between the five segments of its bell-shaped flower. Campanula Scheuchzeri is a larger plant of more open and less tufted growth and with fewer flowerless leafy shoots. Its bell-shaped flowers are usually of a darker blue, are more conical, and have a wider opening; they are, in fact, less truly bell-shaped. Campanula rotundifolia, the common Hair-bell of our heaths and downs, which occurs also in Switzerland, is slightly taller than our plant and has also more cone-shaped flowers. Its flower buds are held erect, while those of the other three Bell-flowers we are considering are dependent. In a general way, the low stature and tufted growth of the Dwarf Bell-flower will, in most cases, suffice for its recognition.