these weeks, too, have been blossoming dozens, yes, hundreds of
others; every nook and corner is full; every walk brings surprises. Some
of our most familiar friends are wanting. One is not surprised that the
most common wayside flower of that golden region is the yellow daisy, or
sunflower it is called; but she remembers fondly our fields of white
daisies, and clumps of gay little buttercups, and she longs for
cheery-faced dandelions beside her path. A few of the latter she may
find, much larger and more showy than ours; but these--it is said in
Colorado Springs--are all from seed imported by an exile for health's
sake, who pined for the flowers of home.

Several peculiarities of Colorado flowers are noteworthy. Some have
gummy or sticky stems, like the gilia, already mentioned, and others
again are "clinging," by means of a certain roughness of stem and leaf.
The mentzelia is of this nature; half a dozen stalks can with difficulty
be separated; and they seem even to attract any light substance, like
fringe or lace, holding so closely to it that they must be torn apart.

Many of the prettiest flowers are, like our milkweed, nourished by a
milky juice, and when severed from the parent stem, not only weep thick
white tears, which stain the hands and the garments, but utterly refuse
to subsist on water, and begin at once to droop. Is it the vitality in
the air which forces even the plants to eccentricities? Or can it be
that they have not yet been subdued into uniformity like ours? Are they
unconventional--nearer to wild Nature? So queries an unscientific lover
of them all.

This slight sketch of a few flowers gives hardly a hint of the richness
of Colorado's flora. No words can paint the profusion and the beauty. I
have not here even mentioned some of the most notable: the great golden
columbine, the State flower, to which our modest blossom is an
insignificant weed;

"The fairy lilies, straight and tall,
Like torches lit for carnival;"

the primrose, opening at evening a disk three or four inches across,
loaded with richest perfume, and changed to odorless pink before
morning; exquisite vetches, with bloom like our sweet pea, and of more
than fifty varieties; harebells in great clumps, and castilleias which
dot the State with scarlet; rosy cyclamens "on long, lithe stems that
soar;" and mertensias, whose delicate bells, blue as a baby's eyes, turn
day by day to pink; the cleome, which covers Denver with a purple