GLACIER PARK WILD FLOWERS 89 



flower (mimulus Lewisii), which somewhat resembles a 

 sturdy, dark wine-red petunia, though its irregular 

 trumpet has a narrower opening and the petals curl 

 back more. It, too, has an eastern relative, closely re- 

 sembling it in shape, but blue instead of red, and not 

 over half the size. The little brooks beside which the 

 western monkey flower grows come leaping down from 

 the snowfields or glaciers above, clear and cold as ice. 

 Often the trail is cut along the steep side of a bank, so 

 that they fall tinkling down to your feet, and once more 

 leap out in a waterfall the other side of the path. Thus, 

 on one side of you is a drop with a splendid prospect of 

 meadow and canon and far peaks, on the other side, so 

 close that you can often pluck the flowers without leav- 

 ing your saddle, a steep bank between little waterfalls, 

 a bank which is a perpetual garden. You look to the 

 left upon far tremendousness, you look to the right at 

 the small, close, intimate world of wild flowers. 



In this intimate world, the yellow aquilegia, or 

 columbine, is conspicuous, and so is the false forget- 

 me-not, which grows everywhere. It is larger and 

 not always so true a blue as the true forget-me-not 

 which doesn't begin to appear until the higher alti- 

 tudes. But it is a lovely flower, none the less, hardly 

 deserving to be branded "false." Delicate harebells 

 sway here, too, in this land where all the flowers crowd 

 Spring and Summer and Autumn into one or two brief 

 months, and rough fleabane may be found beside tall 



