The American Botanist 



VOL. XV JOLIET, ILL., NOVEMBER. 1909 No. 4 



THESE wintry nights against my window pane 

 Nature with busy pencil draws designs 

 Of ferns and blossoms and fine spray of pines. 

 Oak-leaf and acorn and fantastic vines. 

 Which she will make when summer comes again,— 

 Quaint arabesques in argent, flat and cold. 

 Like curious Chinese etchings. — By and by. 

 Walking my leafy garden as of old. 

 These frosty fantasies shall charm my eye 

 In azure, damask, emerald and gold. 



- Thomas Bailey Aldrich. 



CAMAS 



By Walter Albion Squires. 



THE genus Camassia is represented in the Eastern States 

 by a single species, C. Fraseri. It seems to be rather 

 sparsely scattered over the region extending from the moun- 

 tains of Pennsylvania and Georgia to the edges of the Great 

 Plains. I have found it near the source of the Neasho river 

 in Kansas. This is probably near its western limit. I have 

 never seen a locality in the East where this camas made up any 

 considerable part of the flora; but as soon as one crosses the 

 Great Divide and begins to descend the Pacific slope the dif- 

 ferent species of camas begin to be abundant and in some 

 places they make up a large part of the vegetation. Five or 

 six species are found in the West the most abundant being C. 

 esciilenta. 



In the early days this plant was exceeding abundant on 

 the prairies of eastern Washington and northern Idaho. Old 

 settlers of Camas Prairie in northern Idaho tell how, when 

 they first reached the summit of Craigs Mountains, the whole 



