The Wild Flowers
Are Gorgeous And Innumerable, Though Their Beauty, Which
Culminates In July And August, Was Over Before I Arrived, And The
Recent Snow Flurries Have Finished Them.
The time between winter
and winter is very short, and the flowery growth and blossom of a
whole year are compressed into two months.
Here are dandelions,
buttercups, larkspurs, harebells, violets, roses, blue gentian,
columbine, painter's brush, and fifty others, blue and yellow
predominating; and though their blossoms are stiffened by the
cold every morning, they are starring the grass and drooping over
the brook long before noon, making the most of their brief lives
in the sunshine. Of ferns, after many a long hunt, I have only
found the Cystopteris fragilis and the Blechnum spicant, but
I hear that the Pteris aquilina is also found. Snakes and
mosquitoes do not appear to be known here. Coming almost direct
from the tropics, one is dissatisfied with the uniformity of the
foliage; indeed, foliage can hardly be written of, as the trees
properly so called at this height are exclusively Coniferae, and
bear needles instead of leaves. In places there are patches of
spindly aspens, which have turned a lemon yellow, and along the
streams bear cherries, vines, and roses lighten the gulches with
their variegated crimson leaves. The pines are not imposing,
either from their girth or height. Their coloring is blackish
green, and though they are effective singly or in groups, they
are somber and almost funereal when densely massed, as here,
along the mountain sides.
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