Today, hike up and then down Monte Fossa delle Felci. The lines of elevation are marked off in the plants growing on the slope. Scrubby bushes and  brush give way to fragrant eucalyptus, which yields to firs and other evergreens, these finally making room for birches (their bark grayish rather than white) before everything thins out into a rocky summit. I could have done this better, but my knowledge of plant life is deplorable. It’d be impressive to survey the hillside and write a sentence professing that it is dotted with ——–, ——–, and ———, but for the moment, I’d have to leave it like that, as I’ve no idea. At the same time, it’s kind of a cheap move, too. Plant names are pleasant phonetically – unusual, poetic, rarely used in everyday speech. And any such sentence rings authoritative, flashing an effortless knowledge of all in one’s path.

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