Vol.. III.] A Trip through Southeastern Utah. 



J3:) 



not far from Bluff City, where the gold placer excitement has recently 

 existed: from there, by way of McElmo Creek and Montezuma 

 Valley, to Mancos, a town in southwestern Colorado. 



Mr. Alfred Wetherill, who was my guide, planned the route, man- 

 aged everything about the camp and horses, helped me greatly in 

 collecting, and, altogether, was as good a friend and as efficient an 

 aid as any botanist could desire. 



Thompson's Springs is so named because of its relative nearness 

 to water. In a desert country the watering places become the cen- 

 ters, the named places on the map, and though they may be many 

 miles away from a railroad station, yet more than the small cluster 

 of buildings serve to locate to the cattle men, who are almost the 

 only travelers, the general situation of any place. The name would 

 suggest moisture and verdure, but besides the water tank and a 

 feeble stream of yellow alkali water at the bottom of a gulch, every- 

 thing was dry. However, it was the period when vegetation was 

 most luxuriant, and the earth was gay with flowers. Townsendia 

 strigosa almost carpeting the ground in spots, recalled Burns' "wee 

 crimson-tipped flower; " Thelvpodium ambiguum, with its branch- 

 ing habit, glaucous foliage, and numerous clusters of rose-pink blos- 

 soms, gave brightness here and there: while within the precincts of 

 the station viere. Aster ta7iacet7folitis, Arabis longirostris, Abronia mi- 

 crantha, cycloptera and turbinata; a Conanthus differing most notice- 

 ably from Conanthus aretioides in its smaller flowers, Oenothera 

 scapoidea and trichocalyx, Atriplex corrugata and N^ittallii, and the 

 shrubs so frequent in the desert, such as Grayia polygaloides, Arte- 

 misia tridentata and spinosa, Bigelovia graveolens and Tetradymia 

 spi?iosa. So many of the desert shrubs are spinose, because nature 

 is here such a niggardly provider that their ambitious efforts to be- 

 come big plants are thwarted, and they must remain straggling, 

 woody, spiny shrubs. 



There was no time for exploring the country around Thompson's 

 Springs, nor for branching off" onto the alluring mesas and into the 

 side canons along the road. An early start had to be made so as to 

 reach a spring at noon and Moab at night, allowing plenty of time 

 for collecting on the way. 



Some time after we left the station there stretched before us a 

 range of low hills, where the evidences of upheaval were unusualK- 



