32 The Mountaineer 



des), its plume-like fertile fronds very numerous and 

 conspicuous among those infertile. 



The practice trips from camp introduced an entirely 

 new group of plants. On the dry, rocky ledges, high 

 above the mountain meadows, and heathery benches, 

 it seemed as if no flowers would care to cling. But 

 adapting themselves to their bleak abode by such ex- 

 pedients as fleshy or hairy leaves or long tough roots 

 — they are all perennials — they lifted their bright faces 

 from the sandy slopes or gravelly beds, and from many 

 a crevice in the rocks. At Camp Curtis the botanists 

 took all the flowers they saw — three plants of draha 

 aureola and three of a species of Jacob's ladder (pole- 

 monium elegans). The draha is a mouse-colored plant 

 with yellow blossoms, a member of the mustard family, 

 and probably the highest flower on Mount Rainier. The 

 Jacob's ladder is a beautiful indigo with a bright yel- 

 low center, very sticky leaves and a disagreeable smell. 

 Another high plant, also a member of the mustard fam- 

 ily, is the smeloicshia calycina, a white flower with 

 grayish green leaves, the blossom not unlike ordinary 

 candy-tuft. 



At St. Elmo Pass were the funny little chubby 

 heads of phacelia sericea settled close down in a nest 

 of gray leaves ; the silvery green gray leaves of poten- 

 tilla villosa, as soft and silky as the finest velvet; two 

 saxifrages, the little spotted white flowers of saxifraga 

 tronchialis, and the exquisite mats of saxifraga cespi- 

 tosa covered with smiling white blossoms. On all the 

 trips up high on the rocks nothing was more frequently 

 seen than Tolmei's saxifrage (saxifraga tolmeii), very 

 shiny, fleshy, bright-green leaves, forming a big mat 

 and white flowers with dark centers standing in the 

 mat, like stickpins in a cushion. 



On the trip across the Carbon Glacier, up toward 

 Observation Rock, Mr. Curtis found a fine specimen of 

 his favorite mountain flower, moss campion (silene 



