common purple, yellow, white, and red, with their differing forms, a great deal of beauty may be expressed.
Southeastern Oregon has some handsome wild flowers quite new to me; and its marshes grow the Wocus. or yellow pond- lily, the seeds of which furnish food in large amount to the Indians, who macerate them and make them into a sort of oil-cake for winter use.
Yery few flowers are fragrant on the coast; while, on the contrary, very many of those found east of the Cascades are highly perfumed, as they are also in Southern Oregon, where the blue violet, quite scentless near the Columbia, is deliciously fragrant.
The soil and climate of Oregon and Washington are highly favorable to the growth of flowers, and we may find in the gardens here plants from almost every clime growing in more or less perfection. From- the plenitude of moisture, they continue to blossom very late in the season, a bouquet of roses and a dozen other varieties of elegant flowers being often gathered at Christmas. Frequently gardening can be resumed in February, which gives a large proportion of the year to the enjoyment of one of the purest and most wholesome of pleasures.
The United States Exploring Expedition collected, in the year 1854-55, three hundred and sixty species of native plants, of which one hundred and fifty are peculiar to the prairies of Oregon and Washington.
From a pamphlet published by Thomas Howell, of Arthur, Oregon, in 1887, it appears that a list of all the species and varieties known to exist in the territory west of Wyoming and north of California comprises twenty-one hundred and fifty-two species and two hundred and twenty-seven varieties of plants, or twenty-three hundred and seventy-
