MOUNTAIN FLOWERS 159 



White flushed with rose colour are these tiny rounded 

 flowers, constricted at the throat, and giving forth a faint 

 sweet odour. 



" Oh! to be friends with the lichens, the low, creeping vines 

 and the mosses, 



There close to lie; 

 Gazing aloft at each pine-plume that airilj-, playfully tosses 

 'Neath the blue sky." 



Doubtless the name Bearberry is derived from the fact that 

 Bruin is very fond of the fruit of the ArctostapJiylos, though 

 with small game birds, and especially grouse, it is also a favour- 

 ite article of food. The Indians call it Kinnikiidc and prize 

 it for its astringent properties, using it as a medicine and also 

 in the "curing" of animal skins. 



A. alpina, or Alpine Bearberry, is a very tiny species, from 

 two to four inches long, and is found growing on mountain 

 summits as high as 7000 feet. It is usually prostrate, with 

 thin, conspicuously veined leaves, a few pale pink or white 

 flowers, and bright red juicy berries. This is also a shrub and 

 in spite of its small size has shreddy bark. 



RED FALSE HEATHER 



B/yaiif/nes CDipctriforniis. Heath Family 



Densely much branched from the base. Leaves: strongly revolute, 

 thickened and rough margins. Flowers: umbellate, subtended by folia- 

 ceous and rigid bracts ; corolla deep rose colour, campanulate, five-lobed. 



The False Heathers — there are no true Heathers indige- 

 nous to this continent — are also low branching shrubs, but are 

 placed in this Section for the same reason as are the small 

 Vacciniums and the ArctostapJiylos, namely, because it is here 

 that the traveller will expect to find them, deeming them 

 ordinary flowers and not flowering shrubs. 



The Bryanthus cmpetrifonnis grows abundantly in the 

 mountains, and at very high altitudes. It is a wonderful sight 



