36 The Mountaineer 



retiring. Farther up was phlox diffusa, a great mat of 

 grayish leaves and blue, or pinkish blue, flowers hang- 

 ing over a rock or down a bank, and near by a tiny 

 golden aster {erigeron aureus). That unobtrusive but 

 independent little blue fellow with Quaker gray clothes 

 was a lupine {lupinus lyallii). Not one of our new 

 friends did we respect more than him. To that marshy 

 spot, with the bog-moss {spJiagnum) we went for a 

 parting word with the little pink swamp laurel of the 

 mountains {kalmia glauca microphylla) . 



We couldn't take time to climb up to the cliff- 

 dwellers again, but we waved at them from below, and 

 high up on the rocks the rock-dwelling painters' brush 

 {castilleja rupicola) and crimson wild foxglove (pent- 

 stemon menziesii) waved back at us their bright ban- 

 ners. That clump of lace fern (cheilanthes gracilUma) , 

 real quality, she, shook her lace scarf at us, and we 

 knew she had pardoned our intrusion on her quiet re- 

 treat the day before. We said good-bye to a bright 

 yellow member of the rose family (dasiphora fruticosa) 

 and purple aster and blue aster (aster pulchellus and 

 aster polyphyllus), and to tiny blue speedwell (veron- 

 ica cusickii), friend polemonium coeruleum and golden 

 rod (solidago corymdosa.) 



Returning to camp, we were just having a parting 

 word with a bright yellow flower of modest behavior, a 

 general favorite, because of her resemblance to the but- 

 tercup (potentilla flahelUfoUa) , when somewhat to our 

 surprise we found that Alaska spiraea (lutkea pectin- 

 ata) had come all the way down to Lawrence's water- 

 wheel by the cook tent. She looked charming in her 

 creamy white attire, and we bade her a fond farewell. 



The next morning blue violet (viola retroscahra) 

 had a tear in her eye as we left, and perhaps rhododen- 

 dron albifiorum, whom we passed on the trail, soon 

 after saw tears in ours, but we tried to hide them as 

 we gazed back toward the Elysian Fields and saw, high 



