CALIFORNIA TO QUEBEC 173 



where ground smooth by ice into great bosses and slopes, 

 in the fissures of which nestle many curious little alpine 

 plants. 



I stayed here four days, taking walks in different directions, 

 ascending some of the nearest mountains, exploring little hid- 

 den valleys, and everywhere finding flowers quite new to me, 

 and of very great interest. The Pentstemons were of great 

 beauty, especially one which grew in fissures of the granite 

 rocks, with clusters of sky-blue flowers and yellow buds, form- 

 ing a most striking combination. The curious and beautiful 

 Pedicularis groenlandica was common in bogs, with tall spikes 

 of purple-red flowers, having long, strangely-curved beaks, 

 giving the appearance of some fantastic orchid. The genus 

 Gilia was abundant in various curious modifications, one species 

 (G. pungens) being like a minute furze-bush. On some of 

 the hillsides there were sheets of the pretty butterfly-tulip (Calo- 

 chortus Nuttallii), and in moister places the blue Camassia 

 esculenta, the very dwarf Bryanthus Breweri like a miniature 

 rhododendron, the pretty starlike Dodecatheons, the bril- 

 liant Castillejas, and a host of others. Eriogonums, allied to 

 our polygonums, were abundant and varied, and there were 

 many curious composites and elegant little ferns in the rock- 

 crevices. One of the higher mountains was of volcanic rock, 

 and having once seen their characteristic forms, it was evident 

 that most of them were of this formation, being the sources of 

 the great extent of Pliocene lava streams and ash-beds which 

 cover so much of the country in California, Nevada, and Idaho. 

 The older rock here is a kind of gneiss, full of fragments of 

 other rocks, both crystalline and volcanic, producing a result 

 similar to the rocks I found in the granitic region of the Upper 

 Rio Negro, and which I have figured in my " Amazon and Rio 

 Negro" (p. 423, cheap ed. p. 293). The smooth, rounded 

 forms of the rocks here are plainly due to glaciation, and have 

 quite a different character to the globular or dome-form at the 

 Yosemite and in Brazil, due to sub-aerial decomposition and 

 exfoliation. Here they show the remains of what were rugged 

 or jagged peaks worn down smooth into rounded hummocks 

 of very varied forms. Striation is sometimes faintly visible, 



