Flowers in Colorado. 



and the large, conspicuous flowers of mirabilis multiflora 

 are seen all over the town ; opening their flowers late in 

 the afternoon in company with the vespertine mentzelias, 

 they are fresh and bright during the most pleasant part of 

 the summer day. The Soda Spring Ledge, from which 

 boils the cold mineral water, is a locality rich in rare plants. 

 Here grow thamnosma texana, abutilon parvulum, allionia, 

 incarnata, tricuspis acuminata, mirabilis oxybaphoides, etc. 

 " The common flowers of Colorado are very abundant 

 around Canyon City and in its vicinity. The monarda grows 

 upon the mesas ; exquisite pentstemons adorn the brooks ; 

 rosa blanda and the more beautiful rosa arkansana are found 

 on the banks oi the Arkansas ; eriogonum and astragalus 

 are numerous in species and numberless in specimens ; 

 the grass fields of Wet Mountain Valley are full of clovers 

 and cypripedium, iris and lilies ; the botanist, wandering 

 through the canyons of the Sangre di Cristo range, tram- 

 ples down whole fields of white and blue larkspur and 

 delicate mertensia. The summits are covered with woolly- 

 headed thistles, phlox, senecios, forget-me-nots, saxifraga, 

 and the numberless beauties of the Alpine flora. And 

 besides all this, perhaps no locality in the world affords 

 28 



