BOTANICAL INFORMATION. 519 



Saptonas, and truly a delicious root. Ascending another 

 height, I found a group of Pentstemon bushes, No. 478, 2-3 ft. 

 high, with above a hundred stalks, springing from a ligneous, 

 thick rhizoma, each bearing a raceme of large pink-rose flowers. 

 Still higher up, and almost on the plateau, appears another 

 species of Espeletia (419), very abundant, and in place of 

 Esp. helianthoides. The root of this species is less resinous 

 than that of the others, and was formerly dug by the Indians 

 and eaten. Above, on the pine-groved plateau, grow masses 

 of Galium septentrionale and a species of Asperula, filling the 

 small enclosed prairies. In the grassy pine-groves I found the 

 Viola (407), and later again, in open moist prairies, Oenothera 

 (496), Epilob. (518), and Rumex (488). On the brink of a 

 mountain rivulet, fringed with colossal Pines, Poplar, and 

 Willows, I gathered Ribes (507), a shrub about 6 feet high, 

 with erect flowering racemes, smelling like Prunus Padus. 

 I never met with it before nor afterwards, but was told by the 

 Indians that it bears a brownish-red berry, of very agreeable 

 taste. Many of the common plants of the Green Mountain 

 de6les grow here, as Epilobium latifol. (229), and E. colora- 

 tum, Carices, Mimulus, &c. 



The lower slope of the snowy pine-clad ridges teems with 

 flowers of every hue ; the pretty Castilleias, Phlox, Pentste- 

 *non, Swertia, and most of those mentioned in the Green 

 Mountain excursion ; besides several rare ones, in the collec- 

 tion. Amongst them is the elegant Cypripedium, very 

 showy and abundant, growing in tufts, 1-3-flowered, of a 



like potatoes, they burst open lengthwise, showing a snowy- white, fari- 

 naceous substance, which has a sweet, cream-like taste, and somewhat of 

 the aroma of young parsley leaves. This plant, it seems to me, would be 

 an excellent acquisition to our kitchen-gardens ; for the purpose of intro- 

 ducing it, I gathered a great quantity of seeds, which are now in possession 

 of Messrs. Lucombe, Pince, and Co., at Exeter, and who may pos- 

 sibly have raised plants. It holds in Oregon exactly that place which 

 the wild carrot does with us ; and I feel sure that the tubers would simi- 

 larly increase in size by cultivation. 



