MOUNTAIN FLOWERS 265 



This Columbine grows at great altitudes, and may be found 

 amongst the rocks at a height of 8000 feet, where the soil is 

 so light and sparse that there seems to be no foothold for any 

 vegetation at all, much less for such tall and graceful plants 

 as these Aqiiilegias, which stand from one to three feet high 

 and bear abundant blossoms of palest purest yellow, pendent 

 on their brittle stalks. 



The foliage of the Yellow Columbine is much smaller and 

 more delicate than that of A.formosa; but it is equally dark 

 green above and pale green beneath. No prettier sight can 

 be seen than clusters of these wild elfin flowers growing at 

 the edge of some great barren cliff, their fragile loveliness 

 shining against a sombre background of stony walls, from the 

 height of whose overhanging ledges the drooping blossoms nod 

 down at the traveller, as they sway and swing at the bidding 

 of the breeze. 



YELLOW POND LILY 



Niiphar polysepalufn. Water-lily Family 



Leaves: all floating, eight to fourteen inches in diameter, broad-ovate, 

 thick, deeply cordate, on stout half-cylindrical petioles. Flowers: two to 

 five inches in diameter ; sepals eight to twelve, unequal, concave and 

 roundish ; petals eleven to eighteen, dilated, truncate, shorter than the 

 stamens. Fruit: globose, indehiscent. 



This Pond Lily has numerous rounded concave sepals, which 

 are of a deep orange-yellow colour inside and usually streaked 

 and blotched with purple-red on the outside, and assume the 

 functions of petals ; for the real petals of this plant, though 

 very numerous, are inconspicuous and resemble the stamens, 

 being thick, short, and fleshy. 



The Yellow Pond Lily is not so beautiful as its cousin, the 

 White Water-lily, yet the golden-hued mountain species is very 

 fragrant ; it has handsome floating foliage, and flowers which 

 poets have not disdained to praise. 



