PICTURES AND PLANTS FOR CHRISTMAS, 

 WITH AN ELK STORY. 



BY MAJOR R. W. SHUFELDT, M. C, U. S. ARMY. 



MEMBER OF THE ANTHROPOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF FLORENCE, ITALY, ETC. 



(PHOTOGRAPHS BY THE AUTHOR) 



WITH December and Christmas time at hand, 

 there often comes over us a disposition to live 

 again the pleasant outings and collecting trips 

 we enjoyed during some of the previous months of the 

 year; at other times, during the season, we perhaps 

 indulge in anticipating the pleasures that may be in 



Passing from such a scene, the mind may next carry 

 us to some deep, rocky gorge, where one day during 

 the previous April was spent. Every trace of the past 

 winter's snow has melted away, and the warm breath 

 of spring has called to life once more one of the very 

 earliest flowers that will, with marked certainty, be 



ONE OF THE MOST WONDERFULLY BEAUTIFUL FLOWERS OF EARLY SPRING IS THE GROUND OR MOSS PINK, HERE SHOWN 



IN ALL OF ITS LUXURIOUSNESS 



Fig. 1 Moss Pink is a well-known representative of the Phlox family (Polemoniaccae), of which we have nearly a dozen species in eastern 



United States. 



store for us after January, February and March have 

 passed by, when we can, once more, enjoy the balmy 

 days of an early spring. When one of the latter reveries 

 takes possession of us, the earliest spring flowers natur- 

 ally enter into the picture. Up the bare hill-sides or in 

 the open forests, long before the oaks, the chestnuts, 

 and the beeches begin to feel the effects, in bud and bark, 

 of their rising sap, the anemones, the early saxifrage, 

 and bloodroots are there to be seen, smiling upon us in 

 charming little scattered groups, made all the more con- 

 spicuous by the dark earth where they are found. 



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found growing in great luxuriance in regions of this 

 character. It is not difficult to guess the name of this 

 plant it is none other than the widely known moss 

 pink, so named and described by botanists and by all 

 those who are at all familiar with it. 



A few miles above Washington, in the rocky gorges of 

 the Potomac River, one will find, early in April, this ele- 

 gant Ground or Moss Pink, flourishing in all of its native 

 beauty as it is here shown in Figure 1, and, upon nearer 

 view, in Figure 2. These pictures tell their own story 

 and with far greater vividness than any pen could do. 



