40 UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI STUDIES [l88 



Amarella monantha Erigeron jucundus 



A. plebeja Holmii E. salsuginosus 



Swertia palustris E. superbus 



Mertensia polyphylla Senecio carthamoides 



Veronica Wormskjoldia S. blitoides 



Castilleja Arapahoensis S. pseudaureus 



Elephantella Groenlandica Hieracium gracile 

 Pedicularis Parryi 



b. Alpinae. The dry rock-desert lies mingled with or 

 above the wet tundra and extends to the summit, wherever there 

 is soil not covered with snow. The vegetation suffers from ex- 

 treme exposure, and grows close to the ground, seldom, unless 

 sheltered by rocks, rising more than an inch or two in height. 

 In sheltered places under rocks, even at this extreme altitude, 

 I found several beautiful clusters of the blue columbine, the 

 state flower of Colorado, with stems twelve to eighteen inches 

 high, and with blossoms two inches across. The wooly-headed 

 thistle, too, was found of the same height. But in general 

 the vegetation is much dwarfed. Next to the wet tundra the 

 Krummholtz of spruce and fir still persists, under which I 

 detected some fine specimens of club-moss; but farther up 

 there is no shrubby vegetation except the underground wil- 

 lows. The vegetation grows in little rounded tussocks, and 

 consists of the alpine catch-fly, rock-primrose scarcely half 

 an inch high, sibbaldia, dryas, alpine clovers, dwarf sedges, 

 grasses, and rushes, and, last of all, the little yellow saxi- 

 frages and the snowflowers, which are often blossoming at the 

 snow-line. Now and then on the high exposed ridges the 

 beautiful rydbergia rises five or six inches above the mountain 

 turf, its stems and leaves and large yellow flowers swathed 

 in dense wool. For what must be the tribulations of this 



