THE FLORA OF THE OLYMPICS. 
_ Report of the Botanist of the O’Neil Expedition, from Observations taken during 
Six Weeks’ Stay with the Party and Incidents of General Interest. 
BY L. F. HENDERSON. 
“ Parturiunt montes, nascetur ridiculus mus.” Shall I be able 
to blame the reader, if after the perusal of this very meager report, 
but extravagant heading, Horace’s caustic remark occurs to him? 
T have been laboring hard with this heading, trying to reconcile my 
desire to give a very brief announcement with a greater desire to 
impress upon my readers the fact that it is a very incomplete re- 
_ port, partly due to my necessarily short stay with the party, partly 
to the rather surprising similarity of the flora of this region to that 
of the Coast and Cascade Ranges. In this latter fact I was much 
surprised, perhaps without reason. I had thought that a pile of 
mountains so isolated, so nearly surrounded by water, must have a 
_ Temarkable endemic, or peculiar flora. But in my wild expectations 
that new forms, if not new species, or even new genera, would be 
peeping out from the crevices of every succeeding mass of rocks, 
“smiling down upon me from every cliff, or being crushed by every 
other step upon those green, sunny banks, which always border the 
perpetual snows, I forgot, or perhaps would not remember, that the 
Olympic Mountains are but the gigantic and chaotic ending of the 
Black Hills and Coast Range; that they are but sixty miles distant 
from the Cascade Range; that birds have flown, that waters have 
carried, that winds have blown for ages past, as they are doing to- © 
_ day, all assisting in the constant dissemination of seeds; that, 
lastly, the same glacial age acted upon the Olympic Mountains that 
_ did upon the Cascade Range, scattering and leaving a largely 
similar flora on both ranges as it disappeared toward the north. I 
might have found many treasures could I have stayed the whole 
summer with the party, which the limited time at my disposal for- 
bade my finding. I might have found, had not a large ‘collection 
made after my return by one of the soldiers been lost by some un- 
_ accountable means, that the flora is much more varied than I think 
it at present. Furthermore, it may be found that I am greatly mis- 
taken in my statements, when more careful research shall have dis- 
closed all that continuous pile of rocks holds within its inhospitable 
recesses, when several as energetic young explorers as Charles V. 
