BOTANICAL INFORMATION. 2.91 



shape, their size is that of a hen's egg. I found the taste to 

 be very pleasant, but not so as to rival the latter. 



The rest of the valley meadows are either low and moist, 

 losing the spring waters rather late, or elevated as high as 

 the banks of the river. The former change their verdure 

 three times during the warm seasons. When the water has 

 all gone away, the Carices die down, and divers species of 

 Aira appear in their place. Towards September these have 

 done and Trichodium scabrum with Panicum capillare give 

 to these tracts a coppery and whitish mottled color, out 

 of which rise the golden flowers of Coreopsis Atkinsoniana, 

 Helianthus Hookeri. Asterea 473 and Helenium 589. The 

 dry elevated parts of the meadows belong exclusively to 

 Gamassia ; one bulb close to the other for miles and miles. 

 Three other showy kinds of plants only did I recognize : 

 Veratrum viride, Ranunculus 303 and Castilleja 294. The 

 latter seems to belong to that valley only. 



We now traverse the river and visit one of the great 

 Gamass-prairies on one of the great plateaux of Upper Ore- 

 gon of about 3000 feet elevation, situate between the upper 

 Columbia and Kooskooskee rivers, famous for variety of 

 scenery and floral beauty. After crossing the river and a 

 lake encompassed by mountains to the north, we ascend the 

 latter and travel the same course.* Having ascended the 



extraordinary, but in quality they surpassed what I before and afterwards 

 tasted in potatoes. In planting they laid the potatoes whole, in rows a 

 little elevated, filling them afterwards up with soil about a foot deep. 



* Here I beg the indulgence of the reader, to give an account of winter 

 travelling in this region ; for it would leave the botanist in too enviable a 

 light to pass over this, and describe summer excursions only, which are 

 certainly delightful. 



" It was on the same road that I sat out from the Skitsoe village in the 

 beginning of December 1843, to go to Fort Colville on the Columbia 

 River, a distance of about 180 or 200 miles on the winter road. Not 

 finding an opportunity to go in company, and finding also the prices the 

 Indians demanded to guide me too high for my limited means, I, at last, 

 came to the resolution to go alone, though utterly ignorant of the route 

 and the country generally. Having exchanged a fine fat horse I commenced 

 my journey under the auspices of a snowstorm, which increased, the higher 



