The Mountain Garden

In the morning the air smelled sweet and dry. Polly walked slowly through the low silver-green bushes that covered the side of the mountain.

She brushed past rosemary and thyme, and the smell of the plants followed her everywhere she went. People say this mountain is a famous garden, and now she understood why.

Hundreds of wild plants grow on these slopes. Some of them are so rare that they grow almost nowhere else in the world.

A small fan palm grew between the rocks, and pine trees leaned over the pale stone. Polly sat down in their shade and listened to the wind moving through the branches.