yellow, and dicentra, white and scarlet. Tangled among tall
grass and bushes is the pea-vine ( Vicia Americana ); while such
familiar plants as yarrow, sheep-sorrel, St.-John’s-wort, and
spearmint inhabit about cultivated ground.
Bending over springs may be found the lady’s-ear-drop ( Delphinium nudicaule), red; and the dainty dew-bell ( Cyclobothra alba . The autumn fields display the aster, golden rod, and sunflower. but of lesser size than the same plants in the Eastern and Middle States. The native dandelion, too, is a small and ragged flower, while the imported plant blooms in extraordinary splendor, to the distress of lawn-keepers.
It is, indeed, to be remarked that seeds take lodgement in this soil without the encouragement of cultivation. An instance of this is to be seen in the valley of the Lower Umpqua River.
A lady brought with her from New York some common flower seeds early in the “ fifties,” there being among them the snapdragon. The wind scattered the seed from her garden, which took root outside of it, and these outside plants again scattered their seed, by the aid of the wind, further away, until now the whole valley about Gardiner for miles grows snapdragon as a common weed, and very troublesome, because poisonous, to cattle-owners. The traveller on the O. R. and N. Railroad may_ observe, between The Dalles and Hood River, a long stretch of blue bachelor-button, self-sown from the garden of some early settler. The same evidence of fertility and adaptability was noticed at the old mission in the Walla Walla Valley, where the red poppies from the mission garden spread themselves through the meadows of Mill Creek, where they were blooming luxuriantly a quarter of a century after the garden and all about had been destroyed by savage warfare.
The prevailing colors of wild flowers west of the Cascades are purple, yellow, and white, with a fair proportion of pink or red. East of the mountains there are still fewer red flowers. Blue flowers are very rare in any portion of this country, as they are everywhere. I remember to have seen some lovely blue flowers growing in the sands between Wallula and the first crossing of the Touchet, but they were unknown to me. Buff or salmon-color is still rarer, the Collomia being the only one 1 remember seeing. Yet, with all the different shades of the
