Page:Canadian Alpine Journal I, 1.djvu/205

136 flocks of Pink Everlastings (Antennaria parvifolia var. rosea) and warm-scented Clovers (Trifolium pratense), realms of rose where the calm of green things growing tempers the lure of the coral and carmine, and the grasses are gossiping as the migrant hosts of the Dandelions march on through Summer's wide-set door, with all their golden banners unfurled to the southern wind.

Close beside the alpine lakes upon whose bosoms float flat lily-pads, and along the margin of those streams where wet-loving water-weeds wind their tendrils about the drooping, dripping willow wands and Blue-eyed Grasses (Sisyrinchium angustifolium) twinkle like azure stars in the green firmament of the moss, the pale globular blossoms of the Small Wintergreen (Pyrola Minor) hang in pearls upon each juicy stalk and myriads of Red Monkey-flowers (Mimulus Lewisii) glimmer like lamps in the gloom of the thickets.

Very early in the Spring the Pasque Flowers (Anemone Nuttalliana) appear in the land, their purple cups with silvery linings opening wide long before the fringed fern-like foliage develops about the thick downy stems. Very high up on some tiny plateau held in a hollow amongst the hills, some play-ground of the sun, where a patch of verdure is laid in the earth's brown lap, dew-drenched at dusk, ripened to sapphire by the sun at noon, wind-wrinkled by the gales that blow crisply off the glaciers, these large leaf-whorled Pasque Flowers spread in purpling waves across the waste, and turn the plateau into a paradise of flowers from whose violet rim runs the warm wine of loveliness.

To the traveller the wildflowers of the Rocky and Selkirk mountains are a wonderful revelation of the prodigality and color-painting of Nature in these alpine regions; while to the botanist they are a constant