i6o 



Sierra Club Bulletin. 



Brewer Creek, three miles above. Another hour we 

 toiled up over the moraine, which here records the thick- 

 ness of the glacier, once twelve hundred feet in depth. 

 Juniper grew along its rocky slopes; these love the 

 gravel and the blazing sun. Manzanita bushes abounded, 

 of crooked growth and with handsome mahogany-bright 

 branches, white sage, beloved of bees, pungent mint, and 

 brilliant painter's-brush were scattered up and down. 

 On the lower reaches of the moraine grew a tall and 

 strong plant, a perennial with towering shaft, the Frasera 

 speciosa, — in the words of our botanist, a "surprisingly 

 'loud' member of a very modest and dehcate family," the 

 Gentians. The flowers of this were of greenish cream- 

 color, and the whole raceme, with opposite-growing, 

 handsome leaves, simple and entire, was three or four feet 

 in height; a plant expressive of much vital power. It 

 towered aloft like a Chinese pagoda, tier above tier 

 of ornate architecture. Among the contorta pines we 

 noticed where in many places the staminate flowers, 

 while in an advanced stage of the bud, had been cut 

 off by the chipmunks preparatory to drying and storing 

 away for the winter, the squirrels having this trait in 

 common with the Mexican Indians, who, Zumholtz says, 

 gather these for food before they open. One differ- 

 ence must be recorded; the Indians fry theirs, while the 

 chipmunks eat the fresh buds as one would an apple. I 

 tasted these buds, and found them, when in just the right 

 stage, sweet and tonic. One should not wait until the 

 pollen is released; then they are not agreeable to the 

 palate. What clouds of this fecundating powder blow 

 loose when it is ripe ! One often sees pools of water 

 quite covered with the golden impalpable dust, and 

 little windrows by the edge of a stream. A fire, doubt- 

 less set by the sheepmen for the sake of the fresh grass, 

 had its run here not less than six or eight years ago, 

 as one could tell approximately from observing the age of 

 the oldest of the young pines, since all seedlings and little 

 trees had then been destroyed. One cannot, however, 



