JUNE IN FRAN CON I A. 25 



I was not asked to stay, but I was invited 

 to come again; and the next season, also in 

 June, I twice accepted the invitation. On 

 the first of these occasions, although I was 

 eight days later than I had been the year 

 before (June 19th instead of June llth), the 

 diapensia was just coming into somewhat 

 free bloom, while the sandwort showed only 

 here and there a stray flower, and the geum 

 was only in bud. The dwarf paper birch 

 (trees of no one knows what age, matting 

 the ground) was in blossom, with large, 

 handsome catkins, while Cutler's willow 

 was already in fruit, and the crowberry 

 likewise. The willow, like the birch, has 

 learned that the only way to live in such a 

 place is to lie flat upon the ground and let 

 the wind blow over you. The other flowers 

 noted at the summit were one of the blue- 

 berries ( Vaccinium, uliginosum), Bigelow's 

 sedge, and the fragrant alpine holy-grass 

 (Hierochloa alpind). Why should this sa- 

 cred grass, which Christians sprinkle in 

 front of their church doors on feast-days, be 

 scattered thus upon our higher mountain- 

 tops, unless these places are indeed, as the 

 Indian and the ancient Hebrew believed, 

 the special abode of the Great Spirit? 



