Swiss Flowers
EARLY summer in Switzerland i an exceptionally attractive season, and enjoys an unusually long fife, because of the remarkable variety in physical condition, and thertfore in climate. If one knows where to look for it, one may be with it, even in the lowlands—around the great lakes-- from March till June.
• In the Canton of Tessin, on the Sheltered side of the Pennine Alps, where the fan-.leaved palm trees are so thoroughly at home as to have become weeds in the gardens, springtime can be counted upon appearing in March. At Lugano, for instance, the wild Christmas rose is at the height of its beauty on the hillsides in March, and primroses, snowflakes, violets and periwinkles are everywhere. In April comes the wild garland flower (Daphne Cneorum), the twin-flowered narcissus, lily-of-the-valley, dainty pink Erythronium, and the lovely haze of peach blossom. Meanwhile the gardens are radiant with camellias, mimosas, edgeworthias and magnolias. And so spring's floral procession proceeds and -swells, through a blaze of azaleas and rhododendrons, until, in May, it merges into summer's exuberant wealth: - Summer, then, will have appeared in all its fascination to the north of the wall of Alps, and the Lakes of Geneva, Lucerne, Neuchatel, Zurich, Zug, Brienz, and Thun will be robed in an unsurpassable wonder of fruit blossoms. Cherry, plum, pear and apple here • are in such quantity as simply hides some of the villages, as though these latter were demure brides. In this respect, where all is everywhere so wonderful, it is unwise to select any particular district for special mention, but if I dare, .I would counsel those who rejoice in, such scenes to visit in May or early June the little Lake of Aegeri adjoining that of Zug.
And besides the wealth of fruit blossom there are the wonderful wild flowers everywhere astonishing- in their abundance. I would note especially the unique fields of narcissi around Blonay, Vevey and Montreux, on the shores of Lake Geneva.
Pastures yellow and rose with oxlip and mealy primula ; pastures blue and white with myosotis and umbellifer; Pastures blue and gold with gentian and globe flower ; woods blue with hypatica or with scilla ; slopes mauve and white with viola and anemone ; not dotted here and there, but spread most lavishly—dense throngs literally obliterating the. soil and the grasses ; these are some of the delights of early summer from Zurich to Neuchatel, and from Lucerne to Geneva ; and it is a thousand pities they are not better
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