The Mountaineer 35 



grown pink or purple with age showed how spring and 

 summer merge up among the glaciers. Where a little 

 stream crossed the trail and leaky boots sought step- 

 ping stones or a log, the botanist dodged out of line 

 and back again in a minute with a shooting star (dode- 

 catheon Jeffrey ii) and two orchids, a white and a green 

 one (limnorchis leucostachys and piperia unalaschen- 

 &is). 



But the time came when we must leave the spots 

 we had learned to love, and all the flower friends we 

 had made, and the night before camp was broken we 

 went around to leave our adieux with each one. First, 

 the heathers, how hard the parting was, for they had 

 been our constant companions! And yet their vaca- 

 tion was nearly over, too, for their blossoms were fall- 

 ing. Red heather (phyllodoce empetriformis) had been 

 a staunch friend, ready to give anything he possessed 

 for our comfort — many a bed had he furnished, thanks 

 to the kind permission of Mr. O'Farrell, the park 

 ranger; next came yellow heather {phyllodoce glanduli- 

 flora), then their cousin, white heather (cassiope mer- 

 tensiana), true and pure as any real lily of the valley, 

 and last the treasure of the trip, little Alaska heather 

 (harrimanella stellariana) . Then we said good-bye to 

 the louseworts, pedicularis contorta, yellow, short and 

 stout; pedicularis ornithorhynca, red, also short, and 

 inclined to be chubby; tall, graceful pedicularis groen- 

 landica, that we nicknamed "red elephant" because he 

 chooses to adorn himself with little elephants' ears and 

 trunk; white pedicularis racemosa, looking fresh and 

 sweet in her lavender pink bonnets; and last pedicu- 

 laris hracteosttj yellow, pompous, well-to-do. 



Up in the draw on the way to the mountain lived 

 the yellow dog-tooth violet (erythronium parviflorum) ^ 

 just as beautiful as his cousin avalanche lily, but more 



