222 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL chap. 



every traveller who takes an interest in the floral beauties 

 of the two regions. In the Alps the more striking and 

 showy flowers of the Alpine pastures and higher rocks are 

 the white, purple, and yellow anemones ; the beautiful 

 violas ; the glorious blue gentians starring the short turf 

 with azure and indigo, the numerous saxifrages, often 

 with large and showy sprays of flowers ; the many beauti- 

 ful rosy and purple primulas and yellow auriculas; the 

 handsome pinks; the delicate campanulas; the showy 

 white and yellow buttercups, and the graceful meadow- 

 rues. Now in almost all these groups the Rocky Moun- 

 tain alpine and sub-alpine flora is deficient. Anemones 

 are comparatively few in species and not abundant ; 

 violas are almost absent in the higher regions ; gentians, 

 though fairly abundant in species, make no brilliant dis- 

 play as they do in the Alps; saxifrages are few, and those 

 of the crusted section with rigid leaves and large racemes 

 of flowers are entirely wanting ; primulas are represented 

 by one handsome and two small and rather scarce species ; 

 campanulas are scarce, and pinks are entirely absent ; 

 while buttercups and meadow-rues are by no means 

 abundant. Instead of these flowers so familiar to the 

 Alpine tourists, the most showy and widespread plants 

 are the fine and long-spurred blue-and- white columbine, 

 and the scarlet or crimson-bracted castilleias, which form 

 sheets of beautifully contrasted colours, often covering 

 wide mountain slopes either above or just below the 

 timber-line ; numerous purple or blue penstemons ; fine 

 blue polemoniums and lungworts of the genus Mertensia ; 

 some handsome purple or whitish louseworts, and a host 

 of showy purple or yellow composites, which are far more 

 numerous and varied than in the European Alps, and 

 occupy a more prominent place in the alpine and especially 

 in the sub-alpine Rocky Mountain flora. It is evident, 

 therefore, that, notwithstanding the identity of so many of 

 the species and genera of the two regions the proportions 

 in which they occur are very different, and the aspect of 

 the two floras is thus altogether distinct, and in some 

 respects strikingly contrasted. 



