306 BOTANICAL INFORMATION. 



fusiform root of this, as of the other species of Espeletia. 

 Not much of interest can be seen in these plains after the 

 Sisyrinchium has done flowering; a few plants of Gymnandra, 

 230 ; Geum, 296 ; with Potentilla effusa, and the Pyrrocoma, 

 about June, are the lone, yet interesting plants, and we 

 leave therefore these extensive plains to visit the 



II. — Sub-division : the adjoining sandy plains and woods ! 



Extensive level sandy pine woods ; resting on basalt, front- 

 ing with their sides the river-valleys, and a lower terrace of 

 level sandy pine forest or gravelly sandy extensive plains. 

 Here reigns the greatest diversity in the vegetation, which is 

 by far the most interesting of Upper Oregon. All the early 

 spring flowers of the other plains, with few exceptions, are 

 here met with and many that I found nowhere else. Early 

 in April blooms here a beautiful Erythronium, probably 

 E. grandiflorum, of a deep golden yellow, which I did not 

 meet on the left bank of Spokan river, but in its stead found 

 the Erythronium 601. Soon after follow numbers of small 

 spring flowers, all of them mentioned before, except Vesica- 

 ria didymocarpa, growing on dead sandy slopes, which I did 

 not see again, since I passed the Sweet- water rocks on Mis- 

 souri territory. A very rare plant is the Hedyotis 460, which 

 I picked on the rocks at the Kettle-falls, near fort Colville, 

 and of which I found only one specimen ; in the same locality 

 grow Arabis aurea, Delphinium 600, Mahonia and others. 

 On the Gneiss rock slopes, grows Rhus glabra with shrubs or 

 hazel and hawthorn, and under the pines above grow myriads 

 of Ferula* tuberous Cluytonia, Espeletia : further Comandra 

 634, Stellaria 324; Stellaria) 629; Sisymbrium canescens, 

 Veronica peregrina, and a number of small alpine plants. 

 Open tracts of these woods and the gravelly plains without, 

 are the chief habitat of the remarkable " Bitter-root plant,' . 



* Description of the " Bitter root" plant, or Racine amare, Lewisia 

 rediviva, Pursh , (Spatlum, Aboriginorum). 



Planta perrennis vernalis colorata subsucculenta. Radix, tuber fan- 

 naceum amarum, cuticula exteriori nigro-fusca, interiori rubro-auriantiaca. 

 Tuber plants annuae verticale, fusiforme; plants rnaturae partitum, 



