io8 



On drier spots Oreocarya and patches of matted Phlox lie like 

 little snow drifts. Time will not suffice to mention all of the 

 beautiful flowers that enrich the summer landscape. 



From the earliest yellow buttercups the march of the season 

 brings in review the mountain pink and shooting stars of the 

 primrose family, the saxifrages, the lilies, the roses, the peas, 

 the parsleys, borages, mints, daisies, asters, golden rods and 

 many others. And one need not go far afield to find them 

 all. They begin in February or March, swell to fullest abund- 

 ance in June and July, and end in October. 



The season of flowering depends much upon the altitude, 

 being earliest at the lowest and latest at the highest elevations. 

 In this way some of the species bloom from May to August at 

 successively higher levels. The dogtooth violet flowering at 

 3500 feet in May at the latitude of Missoula may often be found 

 in bloom on the first of August, at the altitude of 7000 feet. 

 From the middle of July to the middle of August the mountain 

 parks of the northern Rockies are gorgeous gardens of wild 

 flowers in a riot of colors. The alpine summer is a brief season. 

 It seems as if the spring, summer and autumn floras of lower 

 levels were concentrated into one brief month. Its days are 

 filled with bright sunshine and surging growth. Snow banks 

 thin to the edge in a layer of ice through which the shoots ot 

 tender plants bore their way as if unable to wait for the ground 

 to clear. Here are the dogtooth violets, the paint brushes and 

 anemones, hare bells and blue-bells, saxifrages and daisies. In 

 some places the meadow is filled with gentians of deepest blue, 

 again they abound in the white spikes of the bog orchid and 

 ladies tresses, or in the green flowers of the Scottish asphodel. 

 Some of the more luxuriant meadows abound in cone flower, 

 boneset, groundsel and the tall larkspur and purple monkshood. 

 Among the other mountain flowers a few may be mentioned. 

 The bear grass which sends up tall spikes of creamy white 

 flowers extends in great profusion through the open woods and 

 over treeless slopes. Its delicate grace is worthy of a place in 

 park or garden if it could be lured successfully from its mountain 

 home. The white rhododendron occurs in the Bitter Root and 

 Mission ranges and with the Labrador tea bears white flowers, 

 while the mountain heather spreads its evergreen mats covered 

 by mantles of purple bells. Stately stalks of white hellebore 



