X FLOWERS AND FORESTS OF THE FAR WEST 215 



brush " of the deserts. In the interior plains these thorny 

 and grey-leaved shrubs prevail, with wide tracts of bare 

 earth often covered with saline incrustations. Here and 

 there are found some pretty flowers, such as phloxes, 

 alliums, phacelias, gilias, cleomes, Oenotheras, and other 

 characteristic plants; but the general aspect is that of 

 bare soil scantily covered with a dwarf vegetation, or of 

 low, shrubby thickets of a grey or leafless aspect, consisting 

 mostly of plants allied to the salt- wort, orache, and sea-blite 

 of our salt-marshes, or the goose-foot and wormwood of our 

 waste places. 



The Rocky Mountains. 



We will now leave these comparatively uninteresting- 

 plains and deserts and enter on the Rocky Mountains 

 proper, their deep canons, their wooded slopes and valleys, 

 and their upland pastures, rocky streams and alpine 

 heights. The forest trees consist mainly of a few species of 

 pines, firs, and junipers, none of them very remarkable for 

 size or beauty, with several poplars, and a few oaks, beeches, 

 and maples ; but these rarely form continuous forests, 

 except where the soil and other conditions are especially 

 favourable. Almost everywhere the conifers are most 

 prominent, and give their peculiar character of dark 

 ever-green spiriness to the forest vegetation. The present 

 scantiness of timber trees is no doubt partly due to 

 the agency of man, first by starting forest fires, which 

 rapidly clear extensive areas, and more recently by 

 the felling of timber for building and mining, a cause 

 which has denuded most of the valleys of their original 

 forest trees. There are a considerable number of shrubs 

 of the usual American types, such as sumachs, snowberries, 

 hazels, spiraeas, brambles, and roses, mostly of species 

 common to other parts of America and of no special interest 

 from our present point of view. 



It is when we enter among the mountains and explore 

 the valleys, canons, and lower slopes, that we meet with a 

 variety of new and interesting plants. Among these are 

 some which are specially characteristic of this part of North 

 America. The phloxes, polemoniums, and gilias, some 



