THE PLANT WORIvD 41 



Briefer Articles. 



WILD FLOWERS OF PRAIRIE AND CANYON IN NORTHERN IDAHO. 



Southern Idaho is chiefly a desert tableland. Its predominant flora 

 is of the xerophytic type characteristic of the Great Basin. The northern 

 extremity of Idaho extends into that vast region of mountain forest from 

 which spring the headwaters of the Fraser, the Columbia, the Athabasca, 

 and the Saskatchewan. That portion of Idaho contained between the 

 Salmon and Clearwater rivers is an elevated prairie or tableland and has 

 a sufficient rainfall to enable agriculture to be successfully carried on 

 without the aid of irrigation. It is known as Comar Prairie and is the 

 ancestral home and hunting grounds of the Nez Perce Indians. 



The rolling grassy surface of the prairie on the east drops suddenly — 

 a sheer descent of twenty-five hundred feet into the depths of Clearwater 

 Canyon, east of which it rises in broken mountain ridges to the Conti- 

 nental Divide along the summit of the Bitter Roots. On the southwest 

 is the still deeper Salmon River Canyon and beyond are the lofty and 

 rugged ranges of the Seven Devils. On the west are the low-lying 

 Craig's Mountains, wooded to their summits. 



Though situated so far north, the plant life of Comar Prairie makes its 



appearance quite early in the spring. Early in February, as soon as the 



Chinook winds have melted the snow from the southern slopes of the 



canyons. Ranunculus glabert'imus may be found in blossom. Soon the 



warm slopes and sunny spots at the bases of the basaltic cliffs are colored 



with the golden yellow petals of this little butter-cup. From this time 

 until midsummer there is a constant succession of bloom. By the begin- 

 ning of June prairie and canyon are one vast flower garden — gardens 

 wild and beautiful, not planted by man and untarnished by his hand. 



Erythroniums, anemones, mertensias, delphiniums, claytonias, gera- 

 niums, lupines, dodecatheons, veronicas, and phloxes grow almost every- 

 where. On the mountain slopes and summits tiny flowers are to be 

 found whose real homes are far away on the Arctic tundra. On the lower 

 prairies and meadows calochorti, brodiaeas, and veratrums flourish — 

 beautiful flowers from the sunny climate of California. Whole fields are 

 aglow with the yellow flowers of umbelliferae and compositae. Here and 

 there are plots of the deepest red where the castillejas grow. Camassia 

 escule?ita grows on moist land along the streams and hollows of the prairie. 

 Its bulbs were formerly the chief food supply of the Indians. This plant 

 gives to the prairie its name. 



By the middle of July the rains have usually ceased, and the greater 

 part of plant life having ripened, its seeds become dry and withered above 

 ground. Its life has been stored away in subterranean stem and root 

 and tuber, there during the cold autumnal rains and beneath the winter 

 snow to store up energy till another springtime calls it again to light and 

 growth. Walter Albion Squires. 



Evanston, Illinois. 



