Botanists call this the garden of the
Pyrenees, and, of course, I was most anxious to see it.
The landlord of our hotel was quite enthusiastic in his description of
the treat in store for me, enumerating a long catalogue of colors, and
indicating with his hand, palm downward, the height from the ground at
which I was to expect to see each color. I was afterward told that he
had never been to the famous valley, being by no means addicted to
climbing mountains.
During the first part of the drive from Luchon we saw hanging from the
rocks by the roadside large masses of Saponaria ocymoides, varying
much in the shade of color of the flowers. This is a plant which I
find it better to grow from cuttings than from seed. The best shades
of color are in this way preserved, and the plants are more flowery
and less straggling. As we got near the end of the carriage road, the
meadows became more crowded with flowers known in England only in
gardens.
Besides such plants as Geranium pyrenaicum growing everywhere on the
banks, the fields were full of a light purple geranium--I think
sylvaticum. Here, too, I noticed Meconopsis cambrica with orange
flowers. Narcissus poeticus was also there, and so were some splendid
thistles, large and rich in color. But the most remarkable part of the
coloring in the meadows was produced by different shades of Viola
cornuta carpeting the ground.
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