Vermont Botanical and Bird Clubs 15 



rivers. Our night camps were usually made just below the tree line 

 which seems to be about 11,000 feet at this latitude. 



My plant press consisted of two boards, rounded at the corners, 

 filled with newspapers and tied with cords. This I fastened to the 

 pommel of my saddle, with camera and glasses, but later consigned the 

 press to the dufflebag, substituting in its place an oilskin sack for 

 horseback collections. To hasten the drying I used in camp the back 

 part of our portable stove. 



The greatest floral wonders were near the summits of the divides 

 in spongy places kept moist by the melting snowbanks above. It was 

 in such locations that I found anemones, ranunculuses, and a white 

 caltha. The dryer slopes near were blued by forget-me-nots, Myosotis 

 alpestris, and Mertensia alpina which I thought at first was another 

 forget-me-not of a deeper blue. A little farther down the grassy 

 mountain sides were several species of painted cup, Castilleja, from 

 cream colored to rich carmine; the higher the altitude the wider and 

 deeper colored were the leaves that formed the blossom. Among the 

 more showy plants were a dark blue larkspur, Delphinum Nelsonii, 

 the white masses of Phlox multiflora, the dark magenta Primula Parryi, 

 also the graceful columbine, Aquilegia coerulea. with flowers fully three 

 inches in length which shaded from dark lavender to pure cream white 

 specimens. Another cream colored aquilegea, oreophila, was found 

 on rocky ledges overhanging a river canyon. 



On the exposed rounding summit of Needle mountain at a height 

 of 12,000 feet I found two spring beauties flowering in August; several 

 erigerons; moss campion; a small poppy, Papaver radicatum; and two 

 Townsendias, one of these, alpina, never having been reported but once 

 before. This was a curious, compact sphere of leaves and purplish 

 flowers about an inch and a half in diameter which secured itself to 

 the ground by a taproot. 



On the mountain slopes the most numerous and varied plants were 

 the many species of the Pea family such as Lupinus, Astragalus. Vicia, 

 Hedysarum and several others. These are the mainstay of the elk 

 and mountain sheep which we often saw on these summer ranges. 

 At about 9,000 feet altitude I found two of our Vermont plants, the 

 twin flower, Linnaea americana, and the single flowered shinleaf, 

 Moneses uniflora. 



The flora of my lowest elevation along the Shoshone consisted 

 mostly of sagebrush, Artemisia tridentata, even to the river's edge; 

 masses of Rosa Fendleri, blossoming in July; the black cottonwood, 



