"Yet as in one sense the humblest, in another they are the most honoured of the earth-children; unfading as motionless, the worm frets them not and the autumn wastes not. Strong in lowliness, they neither blanch in heat nor pine in frost. To them, slow-fingered, constant-hearted, is entrusted the weaving of the dark, eternal tapestries of the hills; to them, slow-pencilled, iris-dyed, the tender framing of their endless imagery. Sharing the stillness of the unimpassioned rock, they share also its endurance; and while the winds of departing spring scatter the white hawthorn blossom like drifted snow, and summer dims on the parched meadow the drooping of its cowslip,--gold far above, among the mountains, the silver lichen-spots rest, star-like, on the stone; and the gathering orange-stain upon the edge of yonder western peak reflects the sunsets of a thousand years." Alpine and arctic plants are met with in Great Britain, but Scotland has a much more extensive arctic-Alpine flora than England, Wales, or Ireland, the reason being the greater altitude of its mountains. The combined flora of the United Kingdom contains only ninety-one species of arctic-Alpine plants, and of these eighty-eight--that is, all but three--are natives of Scotland. Of these three the first is a gentian (_Gentiana verna_), which is to be found on the hills of West Yorkshire, Durham, Westmoreland, and other parts. It comes from the Alps. The second is _Lloydia serotina_,--a small bulbous plant with white flowers, which is found on the hills of Carnarvonshire, in Wales. The third, well known in English gardens, is London pride (_Saxifraga umbrosa_), which is only to be found on the southwest Irish hills. Of the ninety-one arctic-Alpine species, just about half are also natives of England and Wales, but only twenty-five belong to Ireland. If we examine the lists of the flora of Arctic Europe we find that all these, except about six, are found in arctic regions; and if we travel farther north till we come actually to polar regions, we find nearly fifty of these species growing there near the sea-level. The Grampian Mountains are the chief centre of the Scottish arctic-Alpine flora. The two principal localities for such flowers in that range are the Breadalbane Mountains in Perthshire, and the Cænlochan and Clova Mountains of Forfarshire. There are also a goodly number on the mountains of the Braemar district.