PLANTS OF THE FLORISSANT REGION IN COLORADO 1 79 



Florissant has a drier and warmer climate than have the parks of 

 northern Colorado, so we find there a number of plants which, in the 

 northern part of the state, do not reach such an altitude. It is inter- 

 esting to make comparison of Estes Park, in northern Colorado, with 

 Florissant. The two places have somewhat similar topography, are 

 about the same altitude, and yet show many differences in their plants. 

 One of the striking plants about Florissant is the Rocky Mountain 

 bee plant. ^ Some fine specimens of this species may be seen along 

 roadsides and in old fields.^ In the Estes Park region this plant does 

 not reach the high altitudes, though it is very abundant at Lyons, only 

 twenty miles from the park. 



As has been said, the great mass of the vegetation is of the arid 

 type. All the lower-lying territory in the lake basin, except along 

 stream-banks, bears dry-country plants. On many a hillside or gentle 

 slope the plants are seen widely scattered, since the dryness of the soil 

 does not permit close massing. So, while in moister places the " struggle 

 for existence" is between plant and plant, here the struggle is between 

 the plant and its hfeless environment. 



In the fiat, open country nearly all the larger and conspicuous 

 plants are low, shrubby composites. Perhaps the visitor who is not 

 a botanist would hardly think of them as ''shrubby," but the lower 

 parts of these plants Uve from year to year, and the general habit 

 of the plant is that of a shrub rather than an herb. Here are various 

 kinds of sage-brush.^ In places where cattle and horses have not 

 trampled the vegetation, or on old wagon tracks, these grayish plants 

 form a striking element of the landscape. None of the large, bushy 

 sage-brushes occur in the Florissant region. An abundance of the 

 smaller ones, however, tells us of the dryness of the soil, which the 

 people of the west associate in their minds with these plants. 



The Colorado rubber plants is abundant with other plants of the 

 same general appearance. From the latex, or juice, of this plant 



' Cleome serrtdata. 



a Shown in the lower right-hand figure in the plate at the end of this article. 



'Artemisia spp. *Picradenia floribunda utilis. 



