Bernard's is a specimen of mountain travellers.
Yet one thing an herbarium is good for: in looking at it you can
recall how they looked, and glowed, and waved in life, with all their
silver-crowned mountains around them.
After we arrived at Grindelwald, tired as I was, I made sketches of
nine varieties, which I intend to color as soon as we rest long
enough. So much I did for love of the dear little souls.
One noticeable feature is the predominance of _yellow_ flowers.
These, of various kinds, so abound as to make a distinct item of
coloring in a distant view. One of the most common is this--of a vivid
chrome yellow, sometimes brilliantly striped with orange.
[Illustration: _of a flowered bract._]
One thing more as to botanical names. What does possess botanists to
afflict the most fragile and delicate of earth's children with such
mountainous and unpronounceable names? Now there was a dear little
flower that I first met at St. Bernard--a little purple bell, with a
fringe; it is more particularly beautiful from its growing just on the
verge of avalanches, coming up and blossoming through the snow. I send
you one in this letter, which I dug out of a snow bank this morning.
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