Stems.—Slender; eighteen inches or so high. Leaves.—Sessile; oblong-ovate to lanceolate; denticulate; somewhat viscid. Peduncles.—Elongated. Corolla.—Eighteen lines to two inches long; with tube exceeding the calyx and five ample spreading ciliate lobes; rose-color or paler, with usually a darker stripe down the center of each lobe. Ridges of lower lobe yellow and spotted; bearded. Stamens.—Included. (See Mimulus.) Hab.—The Sierras, from Central California northward and eastward to Montana.

One of the most beautiful of all our monkey-flowers is this charming species, which is found along the cold streams of the Sierras. Its large flowers have a fragile, delicate look, and the light stems and leaves are of an exquisite green.

I remember coming upon a delightful company of these blossoms, in a little emerald meadow upon the margin of one of those alpine lakelets which nestle among the granite crags. They seemed the most fitting flowers for just such a high, pure atmosphere.

[ALPINE PHLOX—Phlox Douglasii.]

SIERRA PRIMROSE.

Primula suffrutescens, Gray. Primrose Family.

Leaves.—Wedge-shaped, an inch or so long; clustered at the ends of the branches. Flower-stems.—Several inches high. Umbel several-flowered. Calyx.—Five-cleft. Corolla.—Salver-shaped; an inch or less across; deep rose-color, with a yellow eye. Stamens.—High on the corolla-throat opposite its lobes. Ovary.—One-celled. Style slender. Hab.—The Sierras.

If one takes his alpenstock in hand and climbs to the snow line in late summer, he is apt to be rewarded by the charming flowers of the Sierra primrose. The little plants grow in the drip of the snow-banks, where the melting ice gradually liberates the tufts of evergreen leaves. The glowing flowers look as though they might have caught and held the last rosy reflection of the sunset upon the snow above them.

PRIDE OF THE MOUNTAINS.