24 WILD FLOWERS AND TREES OF COLORADO 



because of the altitude or climate there are no bright autumnal colors. 

 There is, however, no foundation for this belief. The poison ivy, the 

 grape, .the Virginia creeper are quite as brilliant in the Rocky Mountains 

 as elsewhere. The aspens turn to bright gold in autumn and the hills 

 and canyon sides are aflame with crimson sumacs. It is true that in 

 the cities one may miss the brilliant reds of the hard maple or scarlet 

 oak, for these trees are seldom planted, but there are instead the yellow 

 cottonwoods, locusts and soft maples. Wherever sugar maples and 

 oaks are planted they assume just as beautiful autumn tints as in their 

 native homes. 



Another mistaken idea is that Rocky Mountain flowers have no 

 odor. Some flowers here, as elsewhere, are scentless, but certainly not 

 all, nor most all, differ in this respect from plants elsewhere. 



The interest which "attaches to the wild flowers and trees of Colorado 

 is due to their great variety and to the unusual beauty of many of the 

 individual species. These are not the result of altitude or climate. The 

 great differences in altitude of different parts of the state permit the 

 growth of an unusual number of species and many of these are quite 

 different from those with which the tourist or the settler has been familiar 

 in his eastern home. But plants behave in Colorado much as they do 

 elsewhere in the world. A mountain district is not so different from 

 other regions except in the wonderfully varied conditions which are 

 presented for plant growth. 



Plants op the Great Plains 



We sometimes think of the plains as flat expanses, dull and devoid of 

 interest. Yet, for the most part, there is not absolute flatness. Well- 

 drained, gently sloping areas alternate with steep gulches cut by storm 

 waters. There is not, however, that rolling character of the country 

 which belongs to the central and eastern states and which is the result 

 of the action of glaciers of the great ice age. It is easy to see that the 

 great plains represent an entirely different geological formation. Indeed 

 they were sea-bottom in not such very remote geological times and their 

 fine-grained soil is the deposit of silt from ancient rivers. But in the 

 centuries since these deposits were laid down and since the ocean-floor 



