WCP454

[1]

Summit Level of the Central Pacific Railway on the Sierra Nevada, 7020 feet above the Sea.¹

July 10th. 1887.

My dear Mitten²

Your letter of the 27th. May reached me at my brother’s³ at Stockton, and I also received 2 or 3 P.M. Gazettes [Pall Mall Gazette] there. I am glad you have bought the piece of land and are working further improvements to the house, under wh. circumstances I could hardly expect you to ramble away to the Rocky Mountains. All the medicinal plants you mention are Eastern. I may get seed of some from correspondents in the East. You will see by the heading of the letter that I am at last away from the alpine plants of California. After many delays, to which a week was added by a badly inflamed upper lip (started perhaps by a mosquito bite) which developed an abscess on the very edge of the lip making eating & drinking a difficulty, not yet quite healed — I bade a final farewell to my brother & his family and made my first half here two days ago. From my Californian letters home which you have no doubt read you will know how arid was all that country the spring glories of wh. I missed. Here everything is in perfection and for flowers rivals the Alps at its best. The Sierra Nevada differs from all other mountain chains I [2] have seen or read of in their very gradual rise. The foothills are 70 or 80 miles from the crest the whole intervening space being a series of hills and valleys gradually rising higher & becoming wilder, till round here the country consists of an undulating plateau of granite broken by rocky knolls & hills & mountains, and diversified by streamlets and lakes and craggy peaks rising one or two thousand feet above it. The general appearance is something like the plateau on top of the Gemmi pass but granite instead of limestone and with no snow clad peaks around: Wherever there is soil among the granite rocks there is a vigorous shrubby vegetation of Prunus, Arbutus, Spiraea Sambicus, Lonicera &c. rendering it impossible to walk about, and on the barer slopes of the mountains are groves of Douglas fir, Abris nobilis, cedar = Libocedrus decurrens (= Thuja lobbi I think) and two or three pines. Among the precipices and ravines there are some beautiful little Ericaceae, two of which — Bryanthus Breweri with branches of red flowers, and Cassiope lycopodiorides with lovely white bells I sent yesterday to Miss Jekyll.⁴ Among the rocks and a little marshy flats are lovely displays of colours in masses, of 4 or 5 species of Pentstemon, Aquilegia truncata, a lovely dwarf azure blue Delphinium, a blazing red Castilleja — pale yellow tufts of Eriogonum flavum, Sidalcea spicata like a delicate [3] mallow, a pale and a dark yellow potenlilla, with blue lupines, [illeg.] Aconitum columbianum, two or three blue Asters and lots of curious little yellow composites; and in boggy places masses of Pedicularis groenlandica with its queer beaked flowers like a strange Orchis, and the pretty Dodecatheon elliphicum. ^Dwarf Polemonium, Gilias, Erysimum, and a host of others combine to form a charming picture, and of course there are hosts of other things not yet in flower which excite my curiosity. There is also the lovely white and yellow Calochortus nuttallii quite abundant, & growing in the middle of other plants, or by hundreds on the stony mountain slopes, but which is absolutely undig-up-able! Its bulb is buried among stones and connected with the stem by a slender radicle which breaks off at the least touch & the small bulb can never be found among the stones I have tried till I am tired, & give it up. In all wet places too are lots of Mimulus mostly yellow, but one tall one rose-colour. I have vainly looked for Sphagnum for packing purposes but found none, and am obliged to use the most wretched moss possible for my purpose. To day I have gathered and put up a lot of plants for you & for Miss Jekyll. I now put them up in tea-lead which I think will answer well, and be lighter than any boxes and as the weight allowed is now reduced to 8 ¾ oz. [4] this is important. The plants sent you are the following: Pentstemon Newberryi.. A beautiful deep rose shrubby Pent. Several ^{seedlings — a fine thing.}

Pedicularis groenlandica. has roots — in bog. Gilia pungens — a queer little plant like a very dwarf furze ^{with tubular campanuculata purp. white flowers.} Aster scopulorum — a violet dwarf Aster.

The ferns are Cryptogramme acrostichorides — ^something like our C. crispus Chilanthes gracillima, the woolly fronded one, and Pelloea Bridgesii — the pretty glaucous plant. These last two grow in crevices of the granite rocks ^fully exposed to sun, and are probably very rare in England if in cultivation. I have sent the ferns and the Shrubby Pentstemon also to Miss Jekyll. The roots of all these were packed in moss as soon as dug up and I feel pretty sure will arrive in good order. I enclose a spec. of the yellow lichen of the Sierra Nevada which drapes the trees on the N. side most beautifully — never saw it elsewhere. I shall probably send you some more plants from here, and trust you may make them grow, especially the ferns for Annie.⁵ I sent what I think is Phaegopteris alpestris yesterday to Miss Jekyll. The most abundant fern here is Cytoplerus fragilis which I am at length getting to know under its varied forms. Send the letter to Annie as I do not know where she is having left the house. A large Veratrum is common, and some other unconspicuous flow^d. Liliacea, but all orchids. I stay here two days more and then for the Rockies. With kind love to all at home

Believe me | yours very sincerely | Alfred R. Wallace. [signature]