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THE (HA 1;A(TK1;1ST1CS Ul' THK CAUCASUS 49
As we rode we exclumged opinions and outlined a theory.
From the first, one fact had impressed us. A certain number of
species, which we had ah-eady seen elsewhere, attained much greater
dunensions in the glade of monkshoods than at lower levels, where
they grew more or less singly. Other species, and those the
largest of all, growing in imposing masses, were absent at lower
levels, but they ascended with us after GOOO feet. These probably
were the fixed and normal species of the maci-ojlora, and the
others only adventitious ones, which had found the ground occupied
by competitors six to ten feet high, so that, except by inordinately
lengthening themselves, they would be in danger of finding neither
space nor light. The struggle for existence had made them macrocampanulre,
macro-potentilke, etc., giants
for tlie nonce. This
tendency can also be observed at home on a small scale. Slender
and drawn-out plants, such as the cow thistle, the scarlet poppy,
the phalaris and other weeds which grow among the brushwood
of our forests or between the spikes of grain, often reach a height
of five to six feet. But in Europe sucli occasional giants are thin,
with stems of no solidity, whereas here it is quite different. For
instance, it is possible to pull up a Campanula lactijiora six feet
high (this species being only from one and a half to two and a
quarter feet in the valley), and yet the stem does not bend in
the hand when it is taken out of the ground. The leaf-stalks
themselves are often remarkably vigorous ; thus the great kidney-
shaped leaves
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of a valerian are borne by very long petioles, which
are strong enough to allow them to be used as sunshades, like those
of the petasites in Europe.
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Such luxuriance of spontaneous vegetation could not exist
without one fundamental condition, that of a fertile soil impregnated
with stores of natural manure almost inexhaustible, and this is
admirably realised in the rich mould of the Caucasian forest.
Beneath the living forest lies a dead forest— not one dead forest,
rather the dead forests of several thousand years. On passing
through the woods we see and sink into the crumbling rotting
Valeriana alliari(efolia, Vahl.
VOL. I.