MOUNTAIN FLOWERS 369 



forest pool, or fringing its borders. As Emerson has so aptly 

 described it, 



" Rosy polygonum, lake-margin's pride," 



is one of the prettiest aquatic plants amongst the mountains. 

 The stems often grow twenty feet in length; sometimes they 

 float, and sometimes they are immersed beneath the waters. 

 The leaves are oblong-elliptic and smooth, and from two to 

 four inches long. 



WESTERN DOCK 



Ru7nex occidentalis. Buckwheat Family 



Stems : stout, strict, erect, leafy, strongly grooved, simple or sparingly 

 branched. Leaves : lanceolate, papillose, obtuse at the apex, cordate 

 at the base, long-petioled. Flowers : green panicle rather dense, erect, 

 flowers loosely whorled ; calyx six-parted, pale green ; wings triangulate- 

 ovate, undulate. 



A large coarse plant growing several feet high, with a 

 strongly grooved stem, huge, long-shaped, bluish-green leaves 

 that are crisped and wavy-margined, and panicles of green 

 flowers set in loose whorls near the apex of the stalks. These 

 flowers have no petals, but only a green six-parted calyx, the 

 three outer divisions of which remain unchanged in fruit, 

 while the three inner sepals develop into wings. 



R. acetosa, or Sorrel, is a much smaller plant and has 

 arrowhead-shaped leaves. 



BLACK CROW-BERRY 



Empetrum nigrum. Crow-berry Family 



Much branched, the branches spreading, densely leafy. Leaves: 

 linear-oblong, crowded, thick, obtuse, the strongly revolute margins 

 roughish. Flowers: very small, purplish, solitary in the upper axils; 

 sepals and petals mostly three. Fruit : a black drupe, containing six to 

 nine nutlets. 



This black-berried herbaceous shrub resembles a Heath, 

 and grows in large dense mats on the mountain sides at high 



