Flowers in Colorado. 



the ground ; and the white ones in great branching plants, 

 six or seven from a single root. On the first slopes of the 

 foot-hills begins the gilia. This is a flower hard to describe. 

 Take a single flower of a verbena cluster; fancy the tubular 

 part an inch or two long, and the flowers set at irregular 

 intervals up and down the length of a slender stem ; this 

 is the best my ignorance can do to convey the idea of the 

 shape of the gilia. And of the color, all I can say is that 

 the gilia is what the botanists call a sporting flower ; and 

 I believe there is no shade of red, from the brightest 

 scarlet up through pale pinks, to white, which you may 

 not see in one half an acre where gilias grow. It is a 

 dancing sort of flower, flutters on the stem, and the stem 

 sways in the lightest wind, so that it always seems either 

 coming towards you or running away. 



There is a part of Cheyenne Mountain which I and one 

 other have come to call " our garden." The possessive 

 pronoun has no legal title behind it; it is an audacious 

 assumption not backed by any squatter sovereignty, nor 

 even by any contribution towards the cultivation of 

 the soil; but ever since we found out the place, it has 

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