Democratic Sentinel, Volume 18, Number 11, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 March 1894 — A FAMOUS FLOWER. [ARTICLE]

A FAMOUS FLOWER.

Wholesale Destruction of Edelweiss Stopped in Switzerland. Every traveler in Switzerland is familiar with the tender star-shaped flowers of this curious plant, whose sage green blossoms are stuck into the hat of every guide and collected with rare ingenuity by the importunate little rascals who race the carriages on the road, or start out like rabbits from the bushes as the pedestrian begins his solitary climb. The plant is scarce and very partial. It is found in the Engadine, seldom in the Bernese Oberland, and has particular corners and mountains that it loves to affect. This scarcity and partiality gave to the edelweiss a somewhat unhealthy notoriety, according to the Philadelphia Times. The rarer it becomes the more ambitious were the excursionists to obtain a sprig. Some years ago every cockney hat was adorned with the curious bloom,feathered,as its botanical name applies, like an old man’s beard, and it was no longer a sign of patience and endurance to wear this pretty badge that hitherto had denoted a long climb and a patient search. When tourists began to brand their alpenstocks down in the valley with the name of a mountain whose base they touched, but whose top they never attempted to reach, then was edelweiss sold by the handful at Interlaken, Chamounix and Grindelwald, and the guides, porters and boys were tempted to rifle the mountains of their peerless flowers. When the rage for art greens came upon us in full force aesthetic young ladies flattered themselves that a wreath of these soft petals would look becoming in the hair, and some went so far as to appear at fancy balls in the charter of “The Alps” smothered in edelweiss. As for the flower itself, it refused to be in any way gracious at the touch of the botanist and sternly declined to be transplanted. The more obstinate was the edelweiss the more determined became the florists, and they purchased it by the root, carefully tended it during the journey home, nursed it across the sea, watched it at every railway station and handed it to the family gardener in order to hear in a few days that the plant, sickening and sighing for its mountain home, had refused to exist in England with the aid of any artificial process. There have been only one or two rare and exceptional cases where the edelweiss was induced to live and give forth flowers in England, and then the result was only obtained by a system of nursing that would have worn out the majority of botanists. At last the Swiss government determined to put down by law the wholesale destruction of this popular flower. It was rapidly disappearing altogether from the country when an enactment made it penal to take a plant up by the roots. The dignity and importance of legislation gave a new impetus to the interest that was attached to the plant, and going in search of the edelweiss became as attractive a source of danger as any to be found in Switzerland. Unaccompanied by guides, and straying from the beaten tracks, more than one tourist has risked his life, and several have been killed in the quest.— [Washington Star.