26 SEPTEMBER 1874, Page 3

There has been a controversy going on for some time

whether the Alpine flower Edelweiss grows exclusively in " dangerous " places. We ourselves can settle it, because the present writer is not an Alpine Clubinan, and never went- into dangerous places in the sense of the controversialists, but he has picked it in great abundance at the foot of the Matterhorn, near the so-called "Black Lake." But the best proof that it does not particularly prefer dangerous situations is that furnished to the Times of Tuesday, by the Rev. H. Smelt, who has succeeded in getting a plant of it to grow in his own vicarage garden at 1Vilkott, near Marlborough, at a height of only 42$ feet above the sea, and not, we presume, situated in a position of any imminent peril to the necks of the inhabitants of the vicarage. This year the plant produced eleven splendid blooms, arranged in a circle round it. Apparently, then, Edelweiss is not bigotedly attached even to a stupendous height, much less to a situation of romantic peril.