Part 36

Frequent throughout the Rockies on slopes and open ground beside the trails; flowering through July.

Stems slender, 1—5 inches long, when prostrate the lateral ones often creeping. Leaves ovate, rather spreading, bright green with slightly whitened edges. Flowers solitary, 4-parted, azure blue, ½ an inch high, the lobes rather spreading.

A very small and rather rare plant found throughout the Rockies at the higher altitudes, on the alpine slopes and summits; flowering in July.

Perennial; stems 2—4 inches high. Leaves oval, glaucous, ¼—½ an inch long, obtuse, the basal forming a rosette. Flowers few or several at the top of the stem, short-peduncled or nearly sessile, usually subtended by a pair of bracts; calyx campanulate, the teeth shorter than the tube; corolla blue or blue-green, ½ an inch or more long, the tube cylindrical with short ovate obtuse lobes.

In wet alpine meadows and slopes throughout the region, a rather rare but very striking little gentian, flowering in July.

Stems clustered, 6—12 inches high, mostly ascending. Leaves from oblong or lanceolate to linear. Flowers from numerous and racemose to few and almost solitary; calyx lobes linear or linear-awl-shaped, unequal, the largest rarely equalling the tube; corolla an inch or less long, bright blue or bluish; funnel-form, spotted inside with white, the lobes ovate, acute, and spreading.

A showy species in damp open meadows in the lower valleys throughout the Rockies, especially abundant at Banff; flowering during August.

Annual, stems simple or branched, slender, erect, 6—20 inches high. Basal leaves obovate or spatulate, obtuse, narrowed into petioles; stem leaves ovate or lanceolate, acute, sessile, 3—5-nerved, 1—2 inches long, the uppermost smaller. Flowers ¼ of an inch or more long, few, on peduncles about their own length, in the axils of the upper leaves; corolla purplish-green or white, 4—5-parted, the lobes ovate, acute, each with a hollow deflexed or descending spur about half the length of the corolla.

In moist places and shaded slopes throughout the Rockies; a rather frequent but inconspicuous plant owing to its green colour; flowering in July.

MENYANTHACEÆ

Buckbean Family

In our species a smooth marsh herb, with creeping rootstock, long-petioled, 3-foliate leaves and white or purplish flowers, in racemes on long lateral scapes.

Creeping rootstocks sometimes a foot long marked by the scars of bases of former petioles. Leaves 3-foliate, petioles sheathing at the base, 2—10 inches long; leaflets oblong or obovate, entire, obtuse at the apex, narrowed to the sessile base, 1½—3 inches long. Flowers half an inch long, pure white or purplish in 10—20-flowered racemes on scape-like naked peduncles; calyx shorter than the corolla which is bearded with white hairs within, giving the flower a feathery appearance.

In open marshes throughout the region, local in distribution; flowering in May and early June.

APOCYNACEÆ

Dogbane Family

In our species, perennial herbs with opposite, entire leaves and small, 5-parted, campanulate, pink flowers in corymbed cymes, and slender elongated terete seed pods.

Stems 1—3 feet high, branches broadly spreading, mostly smooth. Leaves ovate or oval, spine-tipped, smooth above, pale and usually more or less hairy beneath. 2—4 inches long. Flowers pink, open-campanulate, ⅜ of an inch broad, with 5 spreading lobes, numerous, in loose, terminal and axillary cymes; seed pods round, slender, curved, 4—6 inches long, narrowed at the apex, usually in pairs; plant with a milky juice.

Frequent on the line of the railway from Field westward through the valley of the Kicking Horse River.

HYDROPHYLLACÆ

Water-Leaf Family

Herbs, mostly rough-hairy, with alternate or basal leaves, and perfect regular 5-parted flowers in cymes, spikes or racemes, curled when in bud and uncoiling as they flower; stamens 5, inserted on the corolla and alternate with its lobes; filaments thread-like; flowers yellow, purple or white.

Plant rough-hairy; leaves lanceolate and simple or pinnate; flowers blue or violet-purple. =Phacelia.= Plant smooth; leaves round reniform or cordate; flowers white. =Romanzoffia.=

Rough-hairy; stem stout, 6—24 inches high. Leaves white-hairy, lanceolate to ovate, acute, pinnately and obliquely, striately veined, the lower tapering into petioles, commonly with 1—2 pairs of small lateral leaflets. Flowers in a dense spike; corolla bluish, longer than the oblong-lanceolate or linear calyx lobes; filaments much exserted, sparingly bearded.

In the Cougar Valley in the Selkirks; flowering in July.

Silky-hairy or canescent throughout, 6—18 inches high, leafy to the top. Leaves pinnately parted into linear or narrow oblong, numerous, often pinnatifid divisions, the lower petioled, the upper nearly sessile. Flowers crowded in an elongated spike, corolla violet, blue or white, open-campanulate, cleft to the middle; stamens much exserted.

In dry ground and open slopes throughout the region; flowering in June and July.

Stems slender, weak, 3—6 inches long. Leaves mainly at the root, with slender petioles, alternate, round-cordate, or reniform, with 7—11 crenate, glandular-tipped lobes. Flowers more or less racemose on slender, weak scapes with spreading pedicels longer than the flowers; calyx lobes smooth, much shorter than the delicately veiny pale pink or usually white funnel-form corolla with yellow throat and broad rounded lobes.