520 BOTANICAL INFORMATION. 



delicious fragrance, with a large white lip, streaked with 

 yellow and purple. I found afterwards a single tuft of it, on a 

 grassy mountain, near Spokan river. Other plants growing 

 with it are Gymnandra (421), Pedicularis (422), Lupinus 

 (423), Peucedanum (517), Pentst. (41S), Thaspiuml (414), 

 Erigeron (502), Fragaria (6' 12). The shady recesses of the 

 woods abound with Aetata (520), 5-6 feet high, with white 

 flowers and purple berries, Pulmonaria (458), Aspidium, 

 (341), Pyrola, Viola, Linruea, &c. Following these rivulets to 

 their source in the plains, we come to a vegetation of Gamass, 

 Veratrum, Carices, Polygonum (405), Aira (342), Ranunculus, 

 and many other plants mentioned before. The moist plains 

 are often stony, and are the habitat of the Ferula (220*), 

 with Espeletia (419), groups of Senecio (484), and Sida 

 (404), Iris Missourensis, Alopecurus geniculatus, Beck- 

 mannia, Trichodium, and others of common occurrence. 



Leaving the main ridge of the Blue Mountains to our 

 extreme left, we descend again, at the junction of the Koos- 

 Kooskee and Lewis river, to the valley, which being stony, 

 has a very rugged appearance. It is not so with the valle} 

 of the small rivulets ; they are generally spacious, fertile, an 

 appropriated to agriculture by the Indians, mostly by means 



* This plant grows also on the Platte river, in stony, moist meadows. 

 It has an irregular tuber, much like celery, but with a many-heade 

 rhizoma. The leaves and umbels, with all their parts, are upright, an 

 appear as if folded up ; only during flowering time these parts spread 

 a short time. For this reason, the Indians assert that two kinds of brea - 

 root grow together, which are, in fact, one and the same pl ant 

 roots, when dug, are washed clean, dried, and pounded to flour. *° 

 bread, which they bake or rather smoke over their tent-fires, they g* ■ 

 an oblong, rectangular form, about 3 feet long, 1 foot wide, and 

 inches in thickness, leaving a round hole in the middle, to fasten it o 

 the pack-saddle. Such bread keeps nearly six months, if well baked, 

 is insipid, when it has not acquired a mouldy or smoky taste. It K e 8 

 hard when old, that it must be soaked in water for several hours P> 

 one is able to bite it ; yet the Indians, who are accustomed to » 

 their childhood, like it much. 



