xii PREFACE 



As this book is intended more for the use of the general 

 public than for botanists, the flowers herein described are clas- 

 sified according to colour, and without special reference to 

 their scientific relationship ; for the first attribute of a plant 

 that attracts the traveller's eye is invariably its colour, his 

 first question usually being. What is that red flower? (or blue 

 flower, or yellow flower, as the case may be). Of order, 

 genus, and species he probably knows nothing, and therefore 

 the descriptions given in this guide to the mountain wild 

 flowers are so simply and clearly worded that any plants 

 indexed may be readily located in one of the colour sections, 

 together with its name and chief characteristics. 



There are, however, a few botanical terms which it is well 

 the reader should understand ; these are given in the " Ex- 

 planation of Botanical Terms " on page xxv. 



The nomenclature followed throughout this work is strictly 

 in accordance with that endorsed by Professor John Macoun, 

 botanist to the Federal Government of Canada. 



Plants will be found to vary greatly in size and appearance 

 at various altitudes, becoming smaller and shorter as the sum- 

 mits of the mountains are approached, until at 7000 or 8000 

 feet one will find the tiny leaves of the Moss Campion and 

 Mountain Saxifrage growing flat upon the ground, their starry 

 blossoms having no perceptible stalks, but being set close 

 down into the moss-like plants. The Aplopappi, Speedwells, 

 Chickweeds, Whitlow-grass, Eriogonums, Androsaces, Saxi- 

 frages, and Stonecrops are all in evidence at very high eleva- 

 tions, growing in dwarfed alpine forms, and, together with 

 the Heaths, Heathers, and Anemones, are among the last 

 flowers found at the edge of perpetual snow\ 



During the course of a short walk in any direction among 

 the mountains, one may gather many exquisite flowers, for he 

 is not obliged to wander far afield in order to find blossoms 

 of every hue ; while even to reach tree-line, with its rarer 



