260 Flora of the Olympics. [zor 
of a bright green above and silvery below, Chenopodium rubrum, 
Glyceria distans, Orthocarpus castilleioides, (a little plant which 
saves itself from being overlooked by the pretty white tips to its 
bracts), Ranunculus Cymbalaria, a delicate little trailing buttercup, 
common in salt marshes as well as along the borders of pools in 
Eastern Washington and Oregon, and Sagina occidentalis (?). This 
plant I mark with a question mark, for though returned me as this 
species by an eminent authority, I cannot but question it. Sagina 
occidentalis away from the coast, that is, as we know it commonly 
about Portland and throughout the Willamette Valley, is a very del- 
icate, upright thing—so delicate as only to be seen when the head 
is bent toward the ground, for it seldom grows over an inch in 
height. The sea coast form, if form it be, grows flat upon the 
‘ground, and forms a mat two or three inches broad, when exposed 
to the salt spray along the rocky points that extend into the ocean. 
I am even inclined to believe that it is a biennial, if not of longer dura- 
tion. Near at hand, rising two or more feet out of the soft mud 
was the arrow-grass ( Triglochin maritimum ), and mingling with it 
arose the graceful and beautiful hair-grass ( Deschampsia cespitosa), 
its plumes waving with every breath of wind, and sending out a 
sheen of gold, bronze, purple or green from its ever varying tassels. 
It is a commoner below, but from the middle to the tip of its plume, 
I know of no more aristocratic grass. When you stand in some 
hollow or in a boat at low tide in a locality where this plant covers 
hundreds of acres, as it does at Tillamook Bay—when the sun is 
shining brightly and the sky is of a deep blue—when the wind is 
coming in strongly from the ocean and acre after acre billows under 
the passing breeze—when each clump sends forth its own peculiar 
‘color, but all equally glistening—I know of nothing more peacefully - 
beautiful nor more like fairy-land. The only other marsh plants _ 
here seen were a beautiful wild clover ( Trifolium involucratum), the — 
most beauttful with which I am acquainted in this country of wild clov- 
ers, a delicate little umbelliferous plant ( Crantzia lineata), sheep fes- 
‘cue ( Festuca rubra, var.), and the omnipresent skunk’ s cabbage ( Lys- 
whiton Kamtschatcensis). This plant is not to be despised, for 
its yellow chalicés light up the otherwise ugly swamps in early 
spring, its green and generous leaves are as handsome, if not sg 
large, as those of the banana, its fruit and leaves are eagerly eaten _ 
by horses, hogs, deer or bear, while its odor is not nearly so over- _ 
