6 PLANTS BAKERIAN^E. 



Mancos, on the left. About four miles from town, and at 

 an elevation of some 7,500 feet, we left the piiions and the 

 chaparral-covered hillsides through which we had been 

 traveling, and came suddenly into magnificent open pine 

 woods. Our driver told us that the lumbermen distin- 

 guished two kinds of pine, but all seemed to be Pinus sco- 

 pulorum the difference in the timber being probably due to 

 differences in the age and condition of the trees. Many of 

 the pines are of large size and the ground between them, 

 while mostly clear of brushwood, yields a sufficient growth 

 of grass and herbage to give it an attractive park-like effect. 

 Though the collecting in this lower part of the pine belt 

 was not specially interesting, it furnished a few charac- 

 teristic plants, such as Lotus Wrightii and Lithospermum 

 multiflorum. 



Advancing toward higher ground, the winding road 

 brought us to an elevation of about 9,000 feet, where the 

 pines give place to aspen thickets. At this point we ob- 

 tained our first impression of the riches of vegetation 

 belonging to the higher mountains; for the aspen thickets 

 of limited extent were found to alternate with considerable 

 stretches of native meadow brilliant with a great diversity of 

 flowers blooming among the abundant grasses. Fields of 

 the large sunflower-like Wyethia Arizonica, clumps of purple 

 lupine bordering these, red Castilleias and white Polygonum 

 bistbrtoides, Potentillas of several sorts along with other 

 things as showy combined to form a beautiful and most 

 inviting botanical landscape. 



Still continuing the gradual ascent, spruces (Picea Engel- 

 mannii) began to intersperse themselves in groups among 

 the aspen clumps, becoming gradually more and more pre- 

 ponderant, until finally the aspens cease altogether at 11.000 

 eet, where the spruces thenceforward hold undisputed sway 



