STEEP TRAILS 



seems as if Nature, glad to find an opening, 

 were economizing space and trying to see how 

 many of her bright-eyed darlings she can get 

 together in one mountain wreath. 



Along the slopes of the Cascades, where 

 the woods are less dense, especially about the 

 headwaters of the Willamette, there are miles 

 of rhododendron, making glorious outbursts 

 of purple bloom, and down on the prairies in 

 rich, damp hollows the blue-flowered camas- 

 sia grows in such profusion that at a little 

 distance its dense masses appear as beautiful 

 blue lakes imbedded in the green, flowery 

 plains; while all about the streams and the 

 lakes and the beaver-meadows and the mar- 

 gins of the deep woods there is a magnificent 

 tangle of gaultheria and huckleberry bushes 

 with their myriads of pink bells, reinforced 

 with hazel, cornel, rubus of many species, 

 wild plum, cherry, and crab apple; besides 

 thousands of charming bloomers to be foimd 

 in all sorts of places throughout the wilder- 

 ness whose mere names are refreshing, such 

 as linnsea, menziesia, pyrola, chimaphila, brodi- 

 sea, smilacina, fritillaria, calochortus, trillimn, 

 clintonia, veratrum, cypripedium, goodyera, 

 spiranthes, habenaria, and the rare and lovely 

 "Hider of the North," Calypso borealis, to find 

 which is alone a sufl5cient object for a joxir- 

 310 



