PINK FAMILY. Caryophyllaceac. 



Moss Campion. An attractive little dwarf, living only 

 Cushion Pink in the high mountains. It has a long tap- 

 SHene acdulis rO ot and many spreading stems, crowded 



with tiny, stiff, pointed, dark-green leaves, 

 Alpine regions forming close tufts, from six to twenty 



inches across, resembling cushions of 

 harsh moss and spangled all over with pretty little flowers. 

 They are less than half an inch across with a bell-shaped 

 calyx and five bright pinkish-purple petals, occasionally 

 white, with a "crown" of small scales. We find this brave 

 little plant crouching on bleak mountain tops, blossoming 

 gayly at the edge of the snows that never melt, in arctic 

 alpine regions across the world, up to a height of thirteen 

 thousand feet. It is variable. There is a picture in Mrs. 

 Henshaw's Mountain Wild Flowers of Canada. 

 Windmill Pink ^ rather inconspicuous "weed" from 



Silene Anglica Europe, common in fields and along road- 

 (5. Gallica) sides, with a slender, hairy stem, about a 



^ h . ite foot tall, and hairy leaves. The small 



Northwest, etc. flowers grow in a one-sided cluster and 



have a purplish calyx, sticky and hairy, 

 and white or pinkish petals, with a small "crown," each 

 petal twisted to one side like the sails of a windmill. This 

 is widely distributed in nearly all warm temperate regions. 

 Indian Pink From six inches to over a foot tall, with 



Silene Califdrnica a thick, perennial tap-root, one to two 

 Red feet long, and branching, half-erect stems, j 



both leaves and stems covered with fine 

 Northwest 



down, the dull-green foliage contrasting 



well in color with the vivid vermilion of the gorgeous 

 flowers. They are more than an inch across, the petals 

 usually slashed into two broad lobes, flanked by two 

 narrower, shorter points at the sides, the "crown" con- j 

 spicuous. The flowers are even more brilliant in color 

 than S. laciniata and are startlingly beautiful, glowing 

 like coals of fire on the brown forest floor, in the open 

 mountain woods they usually frequent. It is widely 

 distributed in the Coast Ranges and Sierra Nevada 

 Mountains, but nowhere very common. 5. Hookeri has 

 beautiful large pink flowers, often more than two inches 

 across, sometimes white, and grows on shady hillsides io 

 the. Northwest, except in Idaho. 

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