Epigraph
Mimulus Lewisii Pursh. (⅔ Nat.)
Red Monkey-Flower.
Preface
The present volume, though prepared in manual form, is meant only as a guide to the rich and interesting flora of the Canadian Rockies and Selkirks or those portions traversed by the Canadian Pacific Railway between Banff and Glacier. While many of the plants herein described are found throughout the entire region, yet the species characteristic of the two mountain ranges are vastly different. For the most part those of the Rockies might be characterised as plants adapted to the withstanding of severe conditions of drouth and cold, being mostly low and tufted, with small surfaces of leaf exposure, either thick and leathery or in many instances with an ample covering of protecting hairs; while those of the Selkirks, owing to the more humid atmospheric conditions, are essentially moisture-loving forms, with a luxuriant growth of stems and leaves; it is only where the conditions are similar in the two regions that we find the same or similar forms existing. Few of the more characteristic Rocky Mountain species extend west of the divide, while of those of the Selkirks, few extend east of it, except where there is a luxuriant forest growth, with the consequent retention of moisture, and then only at altitudes of from 2000 to 3000 feet greater.
Contrasting the plants of this region with those of the European Alps it is interesting to note, that while the species are for the most part vastly different, yet there is a certain close resemblance in the families and genera which are represented; the Anemones are here, but not in the scarlets and crimsons, running more to whites and purples, and so are the Buttercups, dwarf many of them, but with large, showy flowers; the Saxifrages and Drabas are innumerable as are the Vetches and also the Heaths, but the latter with fewer and very different species. Some plants, however, like the White Mountain Avens (Dryas octopetala), the Butterwort (Pinguicula vulgaris), the Moss Campion (Silene acaulis), the Mountain Cranberry (Vitis-idæa) and the Low Cranberry (Oxycoccus), the One-flowered Wintergreen (Moneses uniflora), the Forget-me-not (Myosotis alpestris) and others are found on both sides of the Atlantic, yet we have no such array of Primroses or Gentians as our European brothers, though both genera are represented with us, while on the other hand they can boast of nothing comparable to our Indian Paint-Brush, found throughout the region on the river shores and bars during late June and early July and later through the summer in its innumerable forms and colours in the moist alpine meadows and slopes.
The ferns and their allies with the more striking of the trees and shrubs have been included in the present work, together with the majority of the herbaceous flowering plants, though some of the largely represented but less striking groups such as the Grasses, Sedges, and Willows have been entirely omitted, not seeming of sufficient general interest to warrant the space required for their intelligent treatment. The species are arranged in accordance with their scientific relationships, with keys to the genera and a general key to the families. Among the illustrations herein contained, many of the plants of the Northwest are figured for the first time.
Acknowledgment is here made to Messrs. David McNicoll, Robert Kerr, and other officials and employees of the Canadian Pacific Railway Company through whose courtesy was made possible the gathering of the data for the basis of this work.
S. B.
Academy of Natural Sciences,
Philadelphia, October 28, 1907.