noun
definition
Any of several plants, native to mountain habitats, often grown in a rock garden
adjective
definition
Of, relating to, or inhabiting mountains, especially above the timber line
example
alpine snows
definition
Of or relating to slalom and downhill skiing. (Compare Nordic.)
Examples of alpine in a Sentence
The Alpine flora is very beautiful.
The Trias does not belong, as might have been expected, to the Alpine or Mediterranean type; but resembles that of Germany and northern Europe.
But there are no perpetual snow-fields, no glaciers creep down these valleys, and no alpine hamlets ever appear to break the monotony.
Gruyre, extensively manufactured in Switzerland and France, is also produced in Italy in the Alpine regions and in Sicily.
He traces the original home of the bulk of existing alpine plants to northern Asia.
On the mountains of Java there appears to be no truly alpine flora; Saxifrage is not found.
Forests and alpine meadows cover their northern slopes.
The two mused over capturing a free half-day to hike the alpine meadows.
On the outbreak of war in 1859 he was placed in command of the Alpine infantry, defeating the Austrians at Casale on the 8th of May, crossing the Ticino on the 23rd of May, and, after a series of victorious fights, liberating Alpine territory as far as the frontier of Tirol.
At the close of the glacial period the alpine floras retreated to the mountains accompanied by an arctic contingent, though doubtless many species of the latter, such as Salix polaris, failed to establish themselves.
Some species, such as Anemone alpine, which are wanting in the Arctic flora of the Old World, he thinks must have reached Europe by way of Greenland from north-east America.
This peak is situated on the threefold boundary of Carinthia, Carniola and Styria, and affords a magnificent view of the whole Alpine neighbouring region.
The area between the southern border of Siberia and the margin of the temperate alpine zone of the Himalaya and north China, comprising what are commonly called central Asia, Turkestan, Mongolia and western Manchuria, is an almost rainless region, having winters of extreme severity and summers of intense heat.
The vegetation of the higher and therefore cooler and less rainy ranges of the Himalaya has greater uniformity of character along the whole chain, and a closer general approach to European forms is maintained; an increased number of species is actually identical, among these being found, at the greatest elevations, many alpine plants believed to be identical with species of the north Arctic regions.
In short, we have a somewhat heterogeneous assemblage of tropical, temperate and alpine plants, as has been already briefly indicated, of which, however, the tropical are so far dominant as to give their character to the flora viewed as a whole.
Its southern extremity penetrates into the high plateau of Asia, and the lake lies entirely in the Alpine zone which fringes that plateau on the north-west.
Outside of these alpine regions comes a broad belt of elevated plains, ranging between 1200 and 1700 ft.
To the north of these mountains, stretching towards the Danube, is the Alpine foothill region, composed partly of terraces and partly of swelling undulations, of which the most important is the Hausruckwald.
Upper Austria has the largest proportion of meadows in all Austria, 18.54%, while 2.49% is lowland and Alpine pasturage.
The orography of this alpine region is very imperfectly known; but the chains have a predominant direction from south-west to north-east.
In the region between Viluisk (on the Vilui) and Yeniseisk a broad belt of alpine tracts, reaching their greatest elevation in the northern Yeniseisk taiga (between the Upper Tunguzka and the Podkamennaya Tunguzka) and continued to the south-west in lower upheavals, separates the elevated plains from the lowlands which extend towards the Arctic Ocean.
Two such folds maybe distinguished, corresponding on a smaller scale to the belt of alpine tracts which fringe the plateau on the north-west.
Formerly filled with alpine lakes, these valleys are now sheeted with flat alluvial soil and occupied by human settlements, and are drained by rivers which flow along them before they make their way to the north through narrow gorges pierced in the mountain-walls.
Gold-dust is found in almost all the alpine regions fringing the great plateau.
Iron-ores are known;at several places on the outskirts of the alpine tracts (as about Irkutsk), as well as in the Selenginsk region and in the Altai.
The three principal rivers - the Ob, the Yenisei, and the Lena - take their rise on the high plateau or in the alpine regions fringing it, and, after descending from the plateau and piercing the alpine regions, flow for many hundreds of miles across the high plains and lowlands before they reach the Arctic, Ocean.
Several alpine lakes, of which the picturesque Teletskoye may be specially mentioned, occupy the deeper parts of the valleys of the Altai.
Although very heavy falls of snow take place in the alpine tracts - especially about Lake Baikal - on the other side, in the steppe regions of the Altai and Transbaikalia and in the neighbourhood of Krasnoyarsk, the amount of snow is so small that travellers use wheeled vehicles, and cattle are able to find food in the steppe.
The alpine rose (Rhododendron dauricum) clusters in masses on the higher mountains; juniper, spiraea, sorbus, the pseudo-acacia (Caragana sibirica and C. arborescens, C. jubata in some of the higher tracts), various Rosaceae - Potentilla fruticosa and Cotoneaster uniflora - the wild cherry (Prunus Padus), and many other shrubs occupy the spaces between the trees.
The Siberian larch predominates also in the alpine tracts fringing the plateau on the north, intermingled with the fir, stone-pine, aspen and birch.
In the alpine tracts of the north the narrowness of the valleys and the steep stony slopes strewn with debris, on which only lichens and mosses are able to grow, make every plot of green grass (even if it be only of Carex) valuable.
The offshoots of the Alpine group are formed by the Wiener Wald, which attains an altitude of 2929 ft.
Amongst the small Alpine lakes, the Erlaufsee and the Lunzer See are worth mentioning.
Mining is only of slight importance, small quantities of coal and iron-ore being extracted in the Alpine foothill region; graphite is found near Miihldorf.
Tofieldia, an arctic and alpine genus of small herbs with a slender scape springing from a tuft of narrow ensiform leaves and bearing a raceme of small green flowers; Narthecium (bog-asphodel), herbs with a habit similar to Tofieldia, but with larger golden-yellow flowers; and Colchicum, a genus with about 30 species including b the meadow saffron or autumn crocus (C. autumnale).
Veratrum is an alpine genus of the north temperate zone.
This same character is also exhibited by the bottoms of the broad valleys, while the more elevated and hilly portions of the territory, especially on their northern slopes, are covered with larch, cedar, pine and deciduous trees belonging to the Siberian flora; where the forests fail they are marshy or assume the character of Alpine meadows - e.g.
The portion of Hungary situated on the right bank of the Danube is filled by the Alpine system, namely, the eastern outlying groups of the Alps.
The tropical vegetation extends to an altitude of about 1300 ft., above which it may be classed as semi-tropical up to about 3500 ft., and temperate up to 7200 ft., above which the vegetation is Alpine.
He appears to have had no great sense of natural beauty, in which point he resembled his generation (though one remarkable story is told of his being deeply affected by Alpine scenery); and, except in his passion for the stage, he does not seem to have cared much for any of the arts, Conversation and literature were, again as in Johnson's case, the sole gods of his idolatry.
It is also included in the Paropamisus, though the latter term embraces more, Caucasus being apparently used only when the alpine barrier is in question.
It was no doubt regarded (and perhaps not altogether untruly) as a part of a great alpine zone believed to traverse Asia from west to east, whether called Taurus, Caucasus or Imaus.
Greeks, White Huns, Samanidae of Bokhara, Ghaznevides, Mongols, Timur and Timuridae, down to Saddozais and Barakzais, have ruled both sides of this great alpine chain.
The narrow space between them is for the most part, but not always, a cold and lofty region known as the Puna containing alpine lakes - the sources of the coast-rivers.
The smaller alpine lakes, often forming the sources of rivers, are numerous.
On the lakes there is a very handsome goose, with white body and dark-green wings shading into violet, called huachua, two kinds of ibis, a large gull (Larus serranus) frequenting the alpine lakes in flocks, flamingoes called parihuana, ducks and water-hens.
The environs abound in numerous charming Alpine excursions.
There is entire absence of the Alpine plants found abundantly on the summits of other high mountains in Japan, a fact due, doubtless, to the comparatively recent activity of the volcano.
In Europe the same physical traitsrelative length of head and shortness of legsdistinguish the central race (Alpine) from the Teutonic, and seem to indicate an affinity between the former and the Mongols.
Styria has numerous small Alpine lakes of which the most important are the Grundel-see, the TOplitz-see, and the Leopoldsteiner-see.