Field Book of Western Wild Flowers

Orange Mariposa Tulip—Calochortus Kennedyi.
By MARGARET ARMSTRONG
IN COLLABORATION WITH
J. J. THORNBER, A.M.
PROFESSOR OF BOTANY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA, AND BOTANIST OF THE ARIZONA AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENT STATION AT TUCSON
WITH FIVE HUNDRED ILLUSTRATIONS IN BLACK AND WHITE, AND FORTY-EIGHT PLATES IN COLOR DRAWN FROM NATURE BY THE AUTHOR
C. P. PUTNAM'S SONS The Knickerbocker Press NEW YORK AND LONDON 1915
Copyright, 1915 by MARGARET ARMSTRONG
The Knickerbocker Press, New York
In this little book a very large number of the commoner wild flowers growing in the United States, west of the Rocky Mountains, are pictured and described. It is the first attempt to supply a popular field book for the whole West. The field is vast, including within its limits all sorts of climate and soil, producing thousands of flowers, infinite in variety and wonderful in beauty, their environment often as different as that of Heine's Pine and Palm . In such strange homes as the Grand Canyon and the Petrified Forest of Arizona, or the deserts of Utah and southern California, we find the oddest desert plants, forced to curious expedients in order to sustain life amidst almost perpetual heat and drought, but often displaying blossoms of such brilliance and delicacy that they might well be envied by their more fortunate sisters, flourishing beside shady waterfalls, in a happy valley like Yosemite, or a splendid mountain garden, such as spreads in many-colored parterres of bloom around the feet of Mt. Rainier. On the wind-swept plains hundreds of flowers are to be found; many kinds of hardy plants brighten the salty margins of the sea cliffs, or bloom at the edge of the snow on rocky mountain peaks, while quantities of humble, everyday flowers border our country roadsides or tint the hills and meadows with lavish color.
The field included the States of Washington, Oregon, California, Idaho, Nevada, Utah, and Arizona and to designate this whole field the term West is used in this book. The term Northwest designates Washington, Oregon, northern Idaho, and northern California, and the term Southwest covers southern California and Arizona. The flowers found only in the Rocky Mountains are not included, and it may be noted here that exceedingly few of the western flowers cross the Rockies and are found in the East.