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The Canada thistle, Erigeron Canadense, which is said to have accompanied the early French voyagers to Canada from Normandy, is reported to have been introduced into other parts of Europe two hundred years ago by a seed which dropped out of the stuffed skin of an American bird.

Because of certain fluids which the roots excrete from their slender extremities; and in this manner the likings and antipathies of certain plants may be accounted for. Thus, it is well known that the creeping thistle is hurtful to oats, erigeron acre to wheat, scabiosa arvensis to flax, &c. Why are some resins odorous?

These garden-patches are full of gay colors of gentian, erigeron, anemone, larkspur, and columbine, and are enlivened with happy birds and bees and marmots. Climbing to an elevation of twenty-five hundred feet, which is about fifteen hundred feet above the level of the glacier at this point, I saw and heard a few marmots, and three ptarmigans that were as tame as barnyard fowls.

The Canada fleabane or Erigeron canadensis, the tansy or Tanacetum vulgare and some others may at times be seen with ray-florets, and according to Murr, they may sometimes be wanting in Aster Tripolium, Bellis perennis, some species of Anthemis, Arnica montana and in a number of other well-known rayed species.

Lutkea, hedysarum, parnassia, epilobium, bluebell, solidago, habenaria, strawberry with fruit half grown, arctostaphylos, mertensia, erigeron, willows, tall grasses and alder are the principal species. There are many butterflies in this garden. Gulls are breeding near here. I saw young in the water to-day.

In the case of the Canadian horseweed or Erigeron canadensis, which is widely naturalized in Europe, the tallest specimens are often twenty-five times as tall as the smallest, the difference increasing to greater extremes, if besides the main stem, the length of the numerous branches of the tall plants are taken into consideration.

The thin, green, mosslike patches seen from camp are composed of a rich, shaggy growth of cassiope, white-flowered bryanthus, dwarf vaccinium with bright pink flowers, saxifrages, anemones, bluebells, gentians, small erigeron, pedicularis, dwarf-willow and a few species of grasses. Of these, Cassiope tetragona is far the most influential and beautiful.

Larkspurs are common, with epilobium, senecio, erigeron, and a few solidagos.

The lower are mostly alder bushes and the topmost a lavish profusion of flowering plants, chiefly cassiope, vaccinium, pyrola, erigeron, gentiana, campanula, anemone, larkspur, and columbine, with a few grasses and ferns. Of these cassiope is at once the commonest and the most beautiful and influential.

After reaching Turlock, I sped afoot over the stubble fields and through miles of brown hemizonia and purple erigeron, to Hopeton, conscious of little more than that the town was behind and beneath me, and the mountains above and before me; on through the oaks and chaparral of the foothills to Coulterville; and then ascended the first great mountain step upon which grows the sugar pine.