(Jloc% (mountain ')l?onbetCanb 



terrace. No one knows how many varieties of 

 wild flowers each year bloom in all the Peak's 

 various ragged zones, but there are probably 

 no fewer than two thousand. Along with these 

 are a number of species of trees. Covering the 

 lower part of the mountain are growths of Cot- 

 tonwood, Douglas spruce, yellow pine, white 

 fir, silver spruce, and the Rocky Mountain birch. 

 Among the flowering plants are the columbine, 

 shooting-star, monkshood, yucca or Spanish 

 bayonet, and iris. Ascending, one finds the win- 

 tergreen, a number of varieties of polemonium, 

 the paintbrush, the Northern gentian, the West- 

 ern yarrow, and the mertensia. At timber-line, 

 at the altitude of about eleven thousand five 

 hundred feet, are Engelmann spruce, arctic 

 willow, mountain birch, foxtail pine, and aspen. 

 At timber-line, too, are the columbine, the 

 paintbrush, and a number of species of phlox. 

 There are no trees in the zone which drapes the 

 uppermost two thousand feet of the summit, 

 but in this are bright flowers, — cushion pinks, 

 the spring beauty, the alpine gentian, the moun- 

 tain buckwheat, the white and yellow mountain 



308 



