THE TREES AND SHRUBS OF THE PACIFIC COAST. 25 



Of the flowers in the alpine meadows, time will not permit of my 

 mentioning more than a few of the more conspicuous. There were two 

 beautiful Asters, A. pulchellus and A. ledophyllus, Gentiana calycosa, 

 Pentstemon Davidsonii, P. Menziesii, Polygonum bistortoides , and 

 Veratrum viride, indistinguishable from its alpine kinsman. The 

 marshy ground was gay with Dodecatheon Jeffreyi, Erythronium 

 montanum, and the white marsh marigold Caltha leptosepala. Higher 

 up still we found at the limit of vegetation Vaguer a amplexicaulis , 

 Lupinus Lyallii, Saxifraga Tolmiei, and Lntkea pectinata growing at 

 about 7,000 feet. Within a stone's-throw of our tent were Veronica 

 Cusickii and another Veronica I was not able to identify, with Phlox 

 diffusa, Solidago multiradiata, and a charming plant, Potentilla 

 fldbellifolia. Gaultheria Myrsiniles, a very minute shrub two inches 

 high, grew among the rocks where the wind had laid the ground bare 

 of snow. Pulsatilla occidentalis , which is perhaps the commonest 

 flower in those wonderful natural gardens, is hardly to be 

 distinguished from our own wind-flower, though larger. 



The only tree of that country which cannot be seen in cultivation 

 is Pinus albicaulis, rare on the southern side of the mountain, but not 

 so on the heights of most of the western ranges. The slide exhibited 

 showed a learned German professor gathering a cone from one of 

 the few trees we saw, but I fear the squirrels and Clark's crows had 

 been before him in getting out the seed. I have never yet been able 

 to gather the cones before these marauders had stolen the seeds. 



I cannot leave the North- West without mentioning that locally 

 much-despised arum, Lysichitum camtschatcense, which fills the 

 marshes in the valleys in April with its immense yellow flowers , and 

 later with its leaves, often 3 feet long by a foot across. ' Skunk 

 cabbage ' is the term of opprobrium given to it in the West. Its 

 huge succulent roots go deep into the bogs, and one would require 

 trenching tools to get them out. The fine clump growing against 

 the north side of the large temperate house at Kew shows how well 

 it likes our climate. On the higher meadows the scarlet Castilleja 

 purpurascens and several other species of this remarkable plant mingle 

 with the snowy blossoms of Valeriana sitchensis. Castilleja or " Indian 

 paint-brush " is one of the alpine genera of these mountains quite 

 unrepresented in the Old World. At timber-line and also lower down, 

 where the trees are high, we found that strange plant which Douglas 

 often mentions — Xerophyllum tenax (fig. 18) ; from the grassy leaves 

 the Indians weave their baskets, which accounts for its local name 

 of ' squaw-grass ' ; I have seen it flowering well in the Edinburgh 

 Botanic Garden. 



We now turn to the mountain range called the Siskiyous, which 

 lies on the boundary between S. Oregon and N. California. I made 

 my expedition there principally to see what is perhaps the rarest 

 conifer in the world, Picea Breweriana or ' Weeping Spruce ' (figs. 

 19, 20). It is supposed that not over 5,000 of these trees exist, and 

 a forest fire might some day exterminate them. After a somewhat 



