Flowers in Colorado. 



yuccas by the hundred in full flower out-of-doors. It grows 

 in such abundance on this mesa that in winter the solid 

 green of its leaves gives a tone of color to whole acres. 

 Spanish bayonet is its common name here, and not an 

 inappropriate one, for the long, blade-like leaves are stiff 

 and pointed as rapiers. They grow in bristling bunches 

 directly from the root ; the outer ones spread wide, and 

 sometimes lie on the ground ; from the centre of this 

 " chevaux de frise ' rise the flower-spikes, usually only one, 

 sometimes two or three, from one to two and a half feet 

 high, set thick with creamy white cups which look more 

 like a magnolia flower than like any thing else. I counted 

 once seventy-two on a spike about two feet long. Profusely 

 as the yucca grows on this mesa, we do not get so many of 

 them as we would like, for the cows are fond of them and 

 eat the blossoms as fast as they come out. What a picture 

 it is, to be sure, a vagrant cow rambling along mile 

 after mile, munching the tops of spikes of yucca blossoms ! 

 There ought to be something transcendent in the quality 

 of her milk after such a day as that. ) V-cr : / 



Beside the castilleia and the yucca, there grow on this 

 mesa many of the vetches, especially a large white variety, 



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