Page:Canadian Alpine Journal I, 1.djvu/200

Rh hills, following up the retreating line of the melting snows, in springtime and, later on, decorating the mountains with its fine feathery seed-heads. Here, too, the Wild Heliotrope (Valeriana sitchensis) grows in profusion, the pink Swamp Laurel (Kalmia glauca) and the White Mountain Rhododendron; Heaths and Heathers, red, rose, and white, carpet the earth beneath the Lyalls Larches, and are among the last vegetation seen at "tree-line"; the Globe Flower (Trollius laxus), a great white bloom with a heart of gold, pushes its way up through the icy coverlet of winter, and the Romanzoffia, with its petals of pure velvet, nestles in the crevices of the rocks at an elevation of 8000 feet.

Field is the place where you will find the large Yellow Lady's Slipper (Cypripedium pubescens) in all its rare perfection. On a long moraine which stretches up from Emerald lake to the foot of the Yoho valley, these huge orchids grow in thick clumps in the month of July. They are weird, uncanny flowers with big yellow pouches and long spiral petals, and very strange does it seem to find there, flourishing on alpine heights, those plants that we are accustomed to associate with South African jungles and tropical surroundings.

As if in contradistinction to the exotic growth of these giant Orchids, you will also find at Feld the hardy Ox-eye Daisy (Chrysanthemum Leucanthemum), the white Canada Violet, the Ragworts, the Honeysuckles, the Cow Parsnips, and the Harebells, rioting all over the meadows, and clothing the earth with a coat of many colors.

At Glacier the Yellow Adders Tongue (Erythronium giganteum) is, perhaps, the most attractive plant to travellers. I have seen these pale yellow blossoms, amid their pallid green leaves, glimmer at dusk with a lambent light beneath the shining star-sown fields of heaven, and at dawn have seen the whole mountain-