MOUNTAIN FLOWERS 173 



ever seen it. It is startling to see a leaf thus brilliantly painted, as if 

 its tip were dipped into some scarlet tincture surpassing most flowers 

 in intensity of colour." 



These words are equally applicable to the mountain Cas- 

 tilleias. Truly the glorious flower-spikes of the Paint-brushes 

 and Painted-cups are like tongues of flame that run burning 

 through the herbage of the hillsides. 



" Scarlet tufts 

 Are glowing in the green like flakes of fire." 



And when we see them in their royal radiance we remem- 

 ber- how the ancients once worshipped the God of Fire — and 

 understand. 



C. Bradbitrii, or Bradbury's Painted-cup, may be recog- 

 nized by its leaves, which are large and cleft above the middle 

 into three or five unequal lobes, the centre one being oblong 

 and rounded at the apex, and the lateral ones narrower. 



'* Flowers that with one scarlet gleam 

 Cover a hundred leagues, and seem 

 To set the hills on fire." 



LONG-BEAKED PEDICULARIS 



Pediailaris Graeiilandica. Figwort Family 



Stems: simple, erect. Leaves: alternate, lanceolate in outline, acute, 

 pinnately parted into lanceolate incised segments, the lower petioled, 

 the upper sessile. Flowers: spike very dense, long; calyx five-toothed; 

 corolla the galea produced into a filiform beak. 



This Pedicidaris has slender, rather brittle, red stalks, which 

 are clothed with many small, fern-like, reddish leaves, and a 

 group of tall fringed foliage grows up about it from the ground. 

 It is a tall plant, often attaining a height of eighteen inches, 

 and its terminal spikes are long and densely flowered with 

 tiny dull red blossoms, which have a toothed calyx that is 

 nearly as long as the tooth of the corolla. The corolla is two- 

 lipped, the upper lip, or galea, being concave and having a 

 long thread-like beak, while the lower one is three-lobed. 



