Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 67.djvu/89

Rh It has been more interesting in other ways than in its crookedness and difficulties. At the port the trees were, so tall and large as to attract attention. But as we went deeper into the forest the cedars, spruces, firs, hemlocks and pines became so much larger that we had to stop now and then to admire their giant trunks, and their great masses of green foliage a hundred feet and more above our heads. Huckleberry bushes of two species (Vaccinium ovalifolium and V. parvifolium) grew by the trail side offering their tempting fruit to us as we passed. There were mosses and lichens everywhere, sometimes hanging from the branches in great masses, a foot in diameter and a yard in length. At our feet, by our side, even on the mossy trunks of the trees, were pretty flowers of many species,

ferns, and even shrubs in profusion. On the ground here and there were gigantic ferns (Pteris aquilina lanuginosa) seven to eight feet high, and a yard across, and looking more like shrubs than the modest brakes of the east.

Do you marvel that I call this a wonderful trail, and that in spite of its length and difficulties it was so full of interest that these were soon forgotten, and only its beauties and scientific interest remembered?