THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 3 



foliate leaves and racemes of large deep yellow pea blossoms 

 at the end of the leafy stems. 



The yellow oxy trope O. campestris is in bloom at the 

 same time, also growing in large patches but much different 

 in appearance, the leaves are pinnate, with about 17 pale green 

 leaflets, the pale yellow flowers are smaller than those of 

 Thermopsis and in a more compact head on naked stems, but 

 as there are often from 10 to 30 flower stalks on a plant 

 standing up above the leaves they are very showy. The oxy- 

 trope seems to prefer dry stony or sandy banks where the 

 grass is thin, so the two are not often found growing to- 

 gether. 



In early May the first woodland flowers begin to open 

 and something new is seen nearly every day. We have several 

 different violets here, some of them new to me. The Canada 

 violet was not a new one, but I had never seen them growing 

 as large and in such numbers before. Nearly every coulee has 

 one or both sides covered with a growth of poplar, balm and 

 white birch trees with an undergrowth of shrubs of different 

 kinds and the ground is carpeted with Canada violets in bloom 

 until cold weather in the Fall. Nuttalls violet is the only 

 yellow species I have found here, usually growing on banks 

 along the valley. 



From the time the first pasque-flower opens in the spring 

 until late in the fall there are flowers everywhere, in the small 

 groves of poplar and willow on the prairie and along the river 

 as well as all over the prairie, but there are very few sweet 

 scented flowers at any time. Of the early flowers the sweet 

 coltsfoot is about the only sweet scented species. 



Through the winter when the trees and shrubs are leaf- 

 less and most flowering plants are dead or merely dry stalks, 

 about the only green to be seen is a large patch of bearberry 

 here and there along the high banks near the river or on the 

 banks of a coulee, nearly always near the top. About the 



