142 ALPINE FLOWERS [PART I. 



the now arid solitudes as blossoms to the crabbed apple-tree. 

 The dead moss will change to bright, shining green, and 

 presently this will be obscured by as fair a host of flowers 

 as ever fretted over the small herbs on Tyrolese Alp. The 

 alpine Phloxes of the Eocky Mountains are as indispens- 

 able to the choice collection of alpine plants as Gentians or 

 Primroses. 



Everywhere on bare places there are tufts of dwarf, bush- 

 like Pentstemons, from 2 to 5 inches high, and bearing nearly 

 the same relation to the tall Pentstemon of our gardens 

 as the alpine Phloxes do to the border Phloxes. The 

 Pentstemons are among the most beautiful of rock-plants, 

 their colours being of a more refined and delicate character 

 than those of the tall varieties, good as these are. Indeed, 

 no flowers possess such iridescent blues and purples as these. 

 Like the little Phloxes, many of these have woody stems, 

 probably as old as some of the Pines near at hand, and 

 have embellished these lonely heights for ages unadmired, 

 unless the " grizzlies " or the woodpeckers delight in such 

 objects. 



It might perhaps be thought that, however well the alpine 

 plants thrive among rocks and boulders, the giant Pines would 

 require good soil, or, at all events, level ground of some kind, to 

 start from. It is not so. A seedling Pine springs up in some 

 shallow chink or narrow crack in a mass of great stones ; 

 patiently it throws out long feeders on one side, which find 

 their way down the steep faces of the rocks or run through 

 any moist or narrow channels into the feeding ground beyond ; 

 it soon gathers strength enough to build a great trunk above 

 the narrow chink from which it sprang, lapping its base over 

 the close-embracing rocks much as a fungus would. I have 

 seen trunks measuring 18 feet in circumference springing 

 from masses of raised rocks, where one would not think 

 a wiry juniper bush could live. 



On looking at some compact brownish tufts of leaves, 

 a few yellow Coronas are seen ; these are somewhat " ever- 

 lasting" in character, and have only faded with the snow- 



