The bird music of Colorado, though not so abundant as one could wish, is singularly rich in quality, and remarkable for its volume. At the threshold of the State the traveler is struck by this peculiarity. As the train thunders by, the Western meadow-lark mounts a telegraph pole and pours out such a peal of melody that it is distinctly heard above the uproar of the iron wheels.
This bird is preëminently the bird of the mesa, or high table-land of the region, and only to hear his rare song is well worth a journey to that distant wonderland. Not of his music could Lucy Larcom say, as she so happily does of our bird of the meadow,—
"Sounds the meadow-lark's refrain
Just as sad and clear."
Nor could his sonorous song be characterized by Clinton Scollard's exquisite verse,—
"From whispering winds your plaintive notes were drawn."
For the brilliant solo of Colorado's bird is not in the least like the charming minor chant of our Eastern lark. So powerful that it is heard at great distances in the clear air, it is still not in the slightest degree strained or harsh, but is sweet and rich, whether it be close at one's side in the silence, or shouted from the housetop in the tumult of a busy street. It has, moreover, the same tender winsomeness that charms us in our own lark song; something that fills the sympathetic listener with delight, that satisfies his whole being; a siren strain that he longs to listen to forever. The whole breadth and grandeur of the great West is in this song, its freedom, its wildness, the height of its mountains, the sweep of its rivers, the beauty of its flowers,—all in the wonderful performance. Even after months of absence, the bare memory of the song of the mesa will move its lover to an almost painful yearning. Of him, indeed, Shelley might truthfully say,—
"Better than all measures
Of delightful sound,
Better than all treasures
That in books are found,
Thy skill to poet were,
Thou scorner of the ground."
Nor is the variety of the lark song less noteworthy than its quality. That each bird has a large répertoire I cannot assert, for my opportunities for study have been too limited; but it is affirmed by those who know him better, that he has, and I fully believe it.
One thing is certainly true of nearly if not quite all of our native birds, that no two sing exactly alike, and the close observer soon learns to distinguish between the robins and the song-sparrows of a neighborhood, by their notes alone. The Western lark seems even more than others to individualize his utterances, so that constant surprises reward the discriminating listener. During two months' bird-study in that delightful cañon-hidden grove at the foot of Cheyenne Mountain, one particular bird song was for weeks an unsolved mystery. The strain consisted of three notes in loud, ringing tones, which syllabled themselves very plainly in my ear as "Whip-for-her."
This unseemly, and most emphatic, demand came always from a distance, and apparently from the top of some tall tree, and it proved to be most tantalizing; for although the first note invariably brought me out, opera-glass in hand, I was never able to come any nearer to a sight of the unknown than the sway of a twig he had just left.
One morning, however, before I was up, the puzzling songster visited the little grove under my windows, and I heard his whole song, of which it now appeared the three notes were merely the conclusion. The performance was eccentric. It began with a soft warble, apparently for his sole entertainment, then suddenly, as if overwhelmed by memory of wrongs received or of punishment deserved, he interrupted his tender melody with a loud, incisive "Whip-for-her!" in a totally different manner. His nearness, however, solved the mystery; the ring of the meadow-lark was in his tones, and I knew him at once. I had not suspected his identity, for the Western bird does not take much trouble to keep out of sight, and, moreover, his song is rarely less than six or eight notes in length.
Another unique singer of the highlands is the horned lark. One morning in June a lively carriage party passing along the mountain side, on a road so bare and bleak that it seemed nothing could live there, was startled by a small gray bird, who suddenly dashed out of the sand beside the wheels, ran across the path, and flew to a fence on the other side. Undisturbed, perhaps even stimulated, by the clatter of two horses and a rattling mountain wagon, undaunted by the laughing and talking load, the little creature at once burst into song, so loud as to be heard above the noisy procession, and so sweet that it silenced every tongue.
"How exquisite! What is it?" we asked each other, at the end of the little aria.
"It's the gray sand bird," answered the native driver.
"Otherwise the horned lark," added the young naturalist, from his broncho behind the carriage.
Let not his name mislead: this pretty fellow, in soft, gray-tinted plumage, is not deformed by "horns;" it is only two little tufts of feathers, which give a certain piquant, wide-awake expression to his head, that have fastened upon him a title so incongruous. The nest of the desert-lover is a slight depression in the barren earth, nothing more; and the eggs harmonize with their surroundings in color. The whole is concealed by its very openness, and as hard to find, as the bobolink's cradle in the trackless grass of the meadow.
Most persistent of all the singers of the grove beside the house was the yellow warbler, a dainty bit of featherhood the size of one's thumb. On the Atlantic coast his simple ditty is tender, and so low that it must be listened for; but in that land of "skies so blue they flash," he sings it at the top of his voice, louder than the robin song as we know it, and easily heard above the roar of the wind and the brawling of the brook he haunts.
Before me at this moment is the nest of one of these little sprites, which I watched till the last dumpy infant had taken flight, and then secured with the branchlet it was built upon. It was in a young oak, not more than twelve feet from the ground, occupying a perpendicular fork, where it was concealed and shaded by no less than sixteen twigs, standing upright, and loaded with leaves. The graceful cup itself, to judge by its looks, might be made of white floss silk,—I have no curiosity to know the actual material,—and is cushioned inside with downy fibres from the cottonwood-tree. It is dainty enough for a fairy's cradle.
The wood-pewee, in dress and manners nearly resembling his Eastern brother,
"The pewee of the loneliest woods,
Sole singer in the solitudes,"
has a strange and decidedly original utterance. While much louder and more continuous, it lacks the sweetness of our bird's notes; indeed, it resembles in quality of tone the voice of our phœbe, or his beautiful relative, the great-crested flycatcher. The Westerner has a great deal to say for himself. On alighting, he announces the fact by a single note, which is a habit also of our phœbe; he sings the sun up in the morning, and he sings it down in the evening, and he would be a delightful neighbor if only his voice were pleasing. But there is little charm in the music, for it is in truth a dismal chant, with the air and cheerfulness of a funeral dirge—a pessimistic performance that inspires the listener with a desire to choke him then and there.
This bird's nest, as well as his song, is unlike that of our wood-pewee. Instead of a delicate, lichen-covered saucer set lightly upon a horizontal crotch of a dead branch,—our bird's chosen home,—it is a deeper cup, fastened tightly upon a large living branch, and, at least in a cottonwood grove, decorated on the outside with the fluffy cotton from the trees.
Even the humming-bird, who contents himself in this part of the world with a modest hum, heard but a short distance away, at the foot of the Rocky Mountains may almost be called a noisy bird. The first one I noticed dashed out of a thickly leaved tree with loud, angry cries, swooped down toward me, and flew back and forth over my head, scolding with a hum which, considering his size, might almost be called a roar. I could not believe my ears until my eyes confirmed their testimony. The sound was not made by the wings, but was plainly a cry strong and harsh in an extraordinary degree.
The Western ruby-throat has other singularities which differentiate him from his Eastern brother. It is very droll to see one of his family take part in the clamors of a bird mob, perching like his bigger fellows, and adding his excited cries to the notes of catbird and robin, chewink and yellow-bird. Attracted one morning by a great bird outcry in a dense young oak grove across the road, I left my seat under the cottonwoods and strolled over toward it. It was plain that some tragedy was in the air, for the winged world was in a panic. Two robins, the only pair in the neighborhood, uttered their cry of distress from the top of the tallest tree; a catbird hopped from branch to branch, flirting his tail and mewing in agitation; a chewink or two near the ground jerked themselves about uneasily, adding their strange, husky call to the hubbub; and above the din rose the shrill voice of a humming-bird. Every individual had his eyes fixed upon the ground, where it was evident that some monster must be lurking. I expected a big snake at the very least, and, putting the lower branches aside, I, too, peered into the semi-twilight of the grove.
No snake was there; but my eyes fell upon an anxious little gray face, obviously much disturbed to find itself the centre of so much attention. As I appeared, this bugaboo, who had caused all the excitement, recognized me as a friend and ran toward me, crying piteously. It was a very small lost kitten!
I took up the stray little beastie, and a silence fell upon the assembly in the trees, which began to scatter, each one departing upon his own business in a moment. But the humming-bird refused to be so easily pacified; he was bound to see the end of the affair, and he followed me out of the grove, still vigorously speaking his mind about the enemy in fur. I suspected that the little creature had wandered away from the house on the hill above, and I went up to see. The hummer accompanied me every step of the way, sometimes flying over my head, and again alighting for a minute on a branch under which I passed. Not until he saw me deliver pussy into the hands of her own family, and return to my usual seat in the grove, did he release me from surveillance and take his leave.
The yellow-breasted chat, the long-tailed variety belonging to the West, delivers his strange medley of "chacks" and whistles, and rattles and other indescribable cries, in a voice that is loud and distinct, as well as sweet and rich. He is a bird of humor, too, with a mocking spirit not common in his race. One day, while sitting motionless in a hidden nook, trying to spy upon the domestic affairs of this elusive individual, I was startled by the so-called "laugh" of a robin, which was instantly repeated by a chat, unseen, but quite near. The robin, apparently surprised or interested, called again, and was a second time mocked. Then he lost his temper, and began a serious reproof to the levity of his neighbor, which ended in a good round scolding, as the saucy chat continued to repeat his taunting laugh. This went on till the red-breast flew away in high dudgeon.
Why our little brothers in feathers are so much more boisterous than elsewhere,
"Up in the parks and the mesas wide,
Under the blue of the bluest sky,"
has not, so far as I know, been discovered.
Whether it be the result of habitual opposition to the strong winds which, during the season of song, sweep over the plains every day, or whether the exhilaration of the mountain air be the cause—who can tell?
Near to the Camp, a little closer to beautiful Cheyenne Mountain, lay a small park. It was a continuation of the grove, through which the brook came roaring and tumbling down from the cañons above, and, being several miles from the town, it had never become a popular resort. A few winding paths, and a rude bench here and there, were the only signs of man's interference with its native wildness; it was practically abandoned to the birds—and me.
The birds had full possession when I appeared on the scene, and though I did my best to be unobtrusive, my presence was not so welcome as I could have wished. Every morning when I came slowly and quietly up the little path from the gate, bird-notes suddenly ceased; the grosbeak, pouring out his soul from the top of a pine-tree, dived down the other side; the towhee, picking up his breakfast on the ground, scuttled behind the bushes and disappeared; the humming-bird, interrupted in her morning "affairs," flew off over my head, scolding vigorously; only the vireo—serene as always—went on warbling and eating, undisturbed.
Then I made haste to seek out an obscure spot, where I could sit and wait in silence, to see who might unwittingly show himself.
I was never lonely, and never tired; for if—as sometimes happened—no flit of wing came near to interest me, there before me was beautiful Cheyenne, with its changing face never twice alike, and its undying associations with its poet and lover, whose lonely grave makes it forever sacred to those who loved her. There, too, was the wonderful sky of Colorado, so blue it looked almost violet, and near at hand the "Singing Water," whose stirring music was always inspiring.
One morning I was startled from my reverie by a sudden cry, so loud and clear that I turned quickly to see what manner of bird had uttered it. The voice was peculiar and entirely new to me. First came a scolding note like that of an oriole, then the "chack" of a blackbird, and next a sweet, clear whistle, one following the other rapidly and vehemently, as if the performer intended to display all his accomplishments in a breath. Cheyenne vanished like "the magic mountain of a dream," blue skies were forgotten, the babbling brook unheard, every sense was instantly alert to see that extraordinary bird,—
"Like a poet hidden,
Singing songs unbidden."
But he did not appear. Not a leaf rustled, not a twig bent, though the strange medley kept on for fifteen minutes, then ceased as abruptly as it had begun, and not a whisper more could be heard. The whole thing seemed uncanny. Was it a bird at all, or a mere "wandering voice"? It seemed to come from a piece of rather swampy ground, overgrown with clumps of willow and low shrubs; but what bird of earthly mould could come and go, and make no sign that a close student of bird ways could detect? Did he creep on the ground? Did he vanish into thin air?
Hours went by. I could not go, and my leafy nook was "struck through with slanted shafts of afternoon" before I reluctantly gave up that I should not see my enchanter that day, and slowly left the grove, the mystery unexplained.
Very early the next morning I was saluted by the same loud, clear calls near the house. Had then the Invisible followed me home? I sprang up and hurried to the always open window. The voice was very near; but I could not see its author, though I was hidden behind blinds.
This time the bird—if bird it were—indulged in a fuller répertoire. I seized pencil and paper, and noted down phonetically the different notes as they were uttered. This is the record: "Rat-t-t-t-t" (very rapid); "quit! quit! quit!" (a little slower); "wh-eu! wh-eu!" (still more deliberately); "chack! chack! chack!" (quite slow); "cr[=e], cr[=e], cr[=e], cr[=e]" (fast); "hu-way! hu-way!" (very sweet). There was a still more musical clause that I cannot put into syllables, then a rattle exactly like castanets, and lastly a sort of "Kr-r-r! kr-r-r!" in the tone of a great-crested flycatcher. While this will not express to one who has not heard it the marvelous charm of it all, it will at least indicate the variety.
Hardly waiting to dispose of breakfast, I betook myself to my "woodland enchanted," resolved to stay till I saw that bird.
"All day in the bushes
The woodland was haunted."
The voice was soon on hand, and once more I was treated to the incomparable recitative.
This day, too, my patience was rewarded; the mystery was solved; I saw the Unknown! While my eyes were fixed upon a certain bush before me, the singer incautiously ventured too near the top of a twig, and I saw him plainly, standing almost upright, and vehemently chanting his fantasia, opening his mouth very wide with every call. I knew him at once, the rogue! from having read of him; he was the yellow-breasted chat. It was well, indeed, that I happened to be looking at that very spot, and that I was quick in my observation; for in a moment he saw the blunder he had made, and slipped back down the stem, too late for his secret—I had him down in black and white.
From that time the little park was never lonely, nor did I spend much time dreaming over Cheyenne. The moment I appeared in the morning my lively host began his vocal gymnastics, while I sat spellbound, bewitched by the magic of his notes. In spite of being absorbed in listening to him, I retained my faculties sufficiently to reflect that the chat had probably other employment than entertaining me, and that doubtless his object was to distract my attention from looking about me, or to reproach me for intruding upon his private domain. In either case there was, of course,
"A nest unseen
Somewhere among the million stalks;"
and, delightful as I found the unseen bird, his nest was a treasure I was even more anxious to see.
Not to disturb him more than necessary, I spent part of an evening studying up the nesting habits of the chat,—the long-tailed, yellow-breasted, as I found him to be,—and the next morning made a thorough search through the swamp, looking into every bush and examining every thicket. An hour or two of this hard work satisfied me for the day, and I went home warm and tired, followed to the very door by the mocking voice, triumphing, as it seemed, in my failure.
The next day, however, fortune smiled upon me; I came upon a nest, not far above the ground, among the stems of a clump of shrubs, which exactly answered the description of the one I sought. Careful not to lay a finger on it, I slightly parted the branches above, and looked in upon three pinkish-white eggs, small in size and dainty as tinted pearls. Happy day, I thought, and the forerunner of happy to-morrows when I should watch
"The green nest full of pleasant shade
Wherein three speckled eggs were laid,"
and see and delight in the family life centring about it.
To study a bird so shy required extraordinary precautions; I therefore sought, and found, a post of observation a long way off, where I could look through a natural vista among the shrubs, and with my glass bring the bush and its precious contents into view. For greater seclusion in my retreat, so that I should be as little conspicuous as possible, I drew down a branch of the low tree over my seat, and fastened it with a fine string to a stout weed below. Then I thought I had a perfect screen; I devoutly hoped the birds would not notice me.
Vain delusion! and labor as vain! Doubtless two pairs of anxious eyes watched from some neighboring bush all my careful preparations, and then and there two despairing hearts bade farewell to their lovely little home, abandoned it and its treasures to the spy and the destroyer, which in their eyes I seemed to be.
This conclusion was forced upon me by the experiences of the next few days. The birds absolutely would not approach the nest while I was in the park. The first morning I sat motionless for nearly two hours, and not a feather showed itself near that bush; it was plainly "tabooed." During the next day the chat called from this side and that, moving about in his wonderful way, without disturbing a twig, rustling a leaf, or flitting a wing—as silently, indeed, as if he were a spirit unclothed.
While waiting for him to show himself, making myself as nearly a part of nature about me as a mortal is gifted to do, I congratulated myself upon the one good look I had secured, for, with all my efforts and all my watching, I saw him but twice more all summer. The enigma of that remarkable voice would have been maddening indeed, if I could not have known to whom it belonged.
After several days of untiring observation I had but two glimpses to record. On one occasion a chat alighted on the top sprig of the fateful shrub, as if going to the nest, but almost on the instant vanished. The same day, a little later, one of these birds flitted into my view, without a sound. So perfectly silent were his movements that I should not have seen him if he had not come directly before my eyes. He, or she, for the pair are alike, alighted in a low bush and scrambled about as if in search of insects, climbing, not hopping. He stayed but a few seconds and departed like a shadow, as he had come.
On the tenth day after my discovery of the nest with its trio of eggs I went out as usual, for I could not abandon hope. In passing the nest I glanced in and saw one egg; I could never see but one as I went by, but, not liking to go too near, I presumed that the other two were there, as I had always found them, and slipped quietly into my usual place.
In a few moments the chat shouted a call so near that it fairly startled me. From that he went on to make his ordinary protest, but, as happened nearly every time, I was not able to see him. I saw something—something that took my breath away. A shadowy form creeping stealthily through the shrubs five or six feet from me. It glided across the opening in front, and in a moment went to the bush I was watching. In silence, but with evident excitement, it moved about, approached the nest, and in a few seconds flew quickly across the path in plain sight, holding in its mouth something white which was large for its beak. I was reminded of an English sparrow carrying a piece of bread as big as his head, a sight familiar to every one. In a minute or two the same bird, or his twin, came to the nest again and disappeared on the other side.
When I left my place to go home, I looked with misgivings into the nest on which I had built so many hopes. Lo! it was empty!
Now I identified that stealthy visitor absolutely, but I shall never name him. I have never heard him accused of nest-robbing, and I shall not make the charge; for I am convinced that the chat had deserted the nest, and that this abstracter of eggs knew it, and simply took the good things the gods threw in his way—as would the best of us.
After that unfortunate ending the chat disappeared from the little park; but a week later I came upon him, or his voice, in a private and rarely visited pasture down the road, where many clumps of small trees and much low growth offered desirable nesting-places. He made his usual protest, and feeling that I had been the cause of the tragedy of the first nest, though I had grieved over it as much as the owners could, the least I could do, to show my regret, was to take myself and my curiosity out of his neighborhood. So I retired at once, and left the whole broad pasture to the incorrigible chat family, who, I hope, succeeded at last in enriching the world by half a dozen more of their bewitching kind.
When first the crocus thrusts its point of gold
Up through the still snow-drifted garden mould,
And folded green things in dim woods unclose
Their crinkled spears, a sudden tremor goes
Into my veins and makes me kith and kin
To every wild-born thing that thrills and blows.
T. B. Aldrich.
My feast of flowers began before I entered Colorado. For half the breadth of Kansas the banks of the railroad were heavenly blue with clustered blossoms of the spiderwort. I remember clumps of this flower in my grandmother's old-fashioned garden, but my wildest dreams never pictured miles of it, so profuse that, looking backward from the train, the track looked like threads of steel in a broad ribbon of blue.
Through the same State, also, the Western meadow-larks kept us company, and I shall never again think of "bleeding Kansas," but of smiling Kansas, the home of the bluest of blossoms and the sweetest of singers. The latter half of the way through the smiling State was golden with yellow daisies in equal abundance, and beside them many other flowers. Beginning at noon, I counted twenty-seven varieties, so near the track that I could distinguish them as we rushed past.
The Santa Fé road enters Colorado in a peculiarly desolate region. Flowers and birds appear to have stayed behind in Kansas, and no green thing shows its head, excepting one dismal-looking bush, which serves only to accentuate the poverty of the soil. As we go on, the mud is replaced by sand and stones, from gravel up to big bowlders, and flowers begin to struggle up through the unpromising ground.
Nothing is more surprising than the amazing profusion of wild-flowers which this apparently ungenial soil produces. Of a certainty, if Colorado is not the paradise of wild-flowers, it is incomparably richer in them than any State east of the Mississippi River and north of "Mason and Dixon's Line." To begin with, there is a marvelous variety. Since I have taken note of them, from about the 10th of June till nearly the same date in July, I have found in my daily walk of not more than a mile or two, each time from one to seven new kinds. A few days I have found seven, many times I have brought home four, and never has a day passed without at least one I had not seen before. That will average, at a low estimate, about a hundred varieties of flowers in a month, and all within a radius of four miles. What neighborhood can produce a record equal to this?
Then, again, the blossoms themselves are so abundant. Hardly a root contents itself with a single flower. The moccasin-plant is the only one I have noticed as yet. One root will usually send up from one to a dozen stems, fairly loaded with buds—like the yucca—which open a few every day, and thus keep in bloom for weeks. Or if there is but one stem, it will be packed with buds from the ground to the tip, with new ones to come out for every blossom that falls.
One in the vase on my stand at this moment is of this sort. It is a stem that sometimes attains a height of four or five feet. I think it lengthens as long as it is blossoming, and, to look at its preparations, that must be all summer. Every two or three inches of the stout stem is a whorl of leaves and buds and blossoms. Except the number of buds, it is all in fours. Opposite each other, making a cross, are four leaves, like a carnation leaf at first, but broadening and lengthening till it is two inches at the base and eight or ten long. Rising out of the axil of each leaf are buds, of graduated size and development up to the open blossom. That one stem, therefore, is prepared to open fresh flowers every day for a long time.
The plant is exquisitely beautiful, for the whole thing, from the stem to the flower petals, is of a delicate, light pea-green. The blossom opens like a star, with four stamens and four petals. The description sounds mathematical, but the plant is graceful—a veritable symphony in green.
A truly royal bouquet stands on my table—three spikes of yucca flowers in a tall vase, the middle one three feet high, bearing fifty blossoms and buds, of large size and a pink color; on its right, one a little less in size, with long creamy cups fully open; and on the left another, set with round greenish balls, not so open as cups. They are distinctly different, but each seems more exquisite than the other, and their fragrance fills the room. In fact it is so overpowering that when at night I close the door opening into the grove, I shut the vase and its contents outside.
This grand flower is the glory of the mesa or table-land at the foot of this range of the Rocky Mountains—the Cheyenne Range. Where no grass—that we name grass—will grow, where trees die for want of water, these noble spikes of flowers dot the bare plains in profusion.
It is the rich possessor of three names. To the flower-lover it is the yucca; to the cultivator, or whosoever meddles with its leaves, it is the Spanish-bayonet; to the utilitarian, who values a thing only as it is of use to him, it is the soap-weed—ignoble name, referring to certain qualities pertaining to its roots. When we remember that this flower is not the careful product of the garden, but of spontaneous growth in the most barren and hopeless-looking plains, we may well regard it as a type of Colorado's luxuriance in these loveliest of nature's gifts.
Of a surly disposition is the blossom of a cactus—the "prickly-pear," as we call it in Eastern gardens, where we cultivate it for its oddity, I suppose. When the sojourner in this land of flowers sees, opening on all sides of this inhospitable-looking plant, rich cream-colored cups, the size of a Jacqueminot bud, and of a rare, satiny sheen, she cannot resist the desire to fill a low dish with them for her table.
Woe to her if she attempts to gather them "by hand"! Properly warned, she will take a knife, sever the flower from the pear (there is no stem to speak of), pick it up by the tip of a petal, carry it home in a paper or handkerchief, and dump it gently into water—happy if she does not feel a dozen intolerable prickles here and there, and have to extract, with help of magnifying-glass and tweezers, as many needle-like barbs rankling in her flesh. She may as well have spared herself the trouble. The flowers possess the uncompromising nature of the stock from which they sprung; they will speedily shut themselves up like buds again—I almost believe they close with a snap—and obstinately refuse to display their satin draperies to delight the eyes of their abductors. This unlovely spirit is not common among Colorado flowers; most of them go on blooming in the vase day after day.
Remarkable are the places in which the flowers are found. Not only are they seen in crevices all the way up the straight side of rocks, where one would hardly think a seed could lodge, but beside the roads, between the horses' tracks, and on the edge of gutters in the streets of a city. One can walk down any street in Colorado Springs and gather a bouquet, lovely and fragrant, choice enough to adorn any one's table. I once counted twelve varieties in crossing one vacant corner lot on the principal street.
One of the richest wild gardens I know is a bare, open spot in a cottonwood grove, part of it tunneled by ants, which run over it by millions, and the rest a jumble of bowlders and wild rosebushes, impossible to describe. In this spot, unshaded from the burning sun, flourish flowers innumerable. Rosebushes, towering far above one's head, loaded with bloom; shrubs of several kinds, equally burdened by delicate white or pink blossoms; the ground covered with foot-high pentstemons, blue and lavender, in which the buds fairly get in each other's way; and a curious plant—primrose, I believe—which opens every morning, a few inches from the ground, a large white blossom like the magnolia, turns it deep pink, and closes it before night; several kinds of yellow flowers; wild geraniums, with a look of home in their daintily penciled petals; above all, the wonderful golden columbine. I despair of picturing this grand flower to eyes accustomed to the insignificant columbine of the East. The blossom is three times the size of its Eastern namesake, growing in clumps sometimes three feet across, with thirty or forty stems of flowers standing two and a half feet high. In hue it is a delicate straw color, sometimes all one tint, sometimes with outside petals of snowy white, and rarely with those outsiders of lavender. It is a red-letter day when the flower-lover comes upon a clump of the lavender-leaved columbine. Far up in the mountains is found still another variety of this beautiful flower, with outside petals of a rich blue. This, I believe, is the State flower of Colorado.
I am surprised at the small number of flowers here with which I am familiar. I think there are not more than half a dozen in all this extraordinary "procession of flowers" that I ever saw before. In consequence, every day promises discoveries, every walk is exciting as an excursion into unknown lands, each new find is a fresh treasure.
Like torches lit for carnival,
The fiery lilies straight and tall
Burn where the deepest shadow is;
Still dance the columbines cliff-hung,
And like a broidered veil outflung
The many-blossomed clematis.
Susan Coolidge.
A rough, scraggy plant, with unattractive, dark-green foliage and a profusion of buds standing out at all angles, is, in July, almost the only growing thing to be seen on the barren-looking mesa around Colorado Springs. Anything more unpromising can hardly be imagined; the coarsest thistle is a beauty beside it; the common burdock has a grace of growth far beyond it; the meanest weed shows a color which puts it to shame. Yet if the curious traveler pass that way again, late in the afternoon, he shall find that "Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these." He will see the bush transfigured; its angular form hidden under a mass of many pointed stars of snowy whiteness, with clusters of pale gold stamens. Then will stand revealed the "superb mentzelia," a true Cinderella, fit only for ignominious uses in the morning, but a suitable bride for the fairy prince in the evening.
To look at the wide-stretching table-lands, where, during its season, this fairy-story transformation takes place daily, so burned by the sun, and swept by the wind, that no cultivated plant will flourish on it, one would never suspect that it is the scene of a brilliant "procession of flowers" from spring to fall. "There is always something going on outdoors worth seeing," says Charles Dudley Warner, and of no part of the world is this more true than of these apparently desolate plains at the foot of the Rocky Mountains. Rich is the reward of the daily stroller, not only in the inspiration of its pure, bracing air, the songs of its meadow-larks, and the glory of its grand mountain view, but in its charming flower show.
This begins with the anemone, modest and shy like our own, but three times as big, and well protected from the sharp May breezes by a soft, fluffy silk wrap. Then some day in early June the walker shall note groups of long, sword-shaped leaves, rising in clusters here and there from the ground. He may not handle them with impunity, for they are strong and sharp-edged, and somewhat later the beauty they are set to guard is revealed. A stem or two, heavy and loaded with hard green balls, pushes itself up among them day by day, till some morning he stands spellbound before the full-blown bells of the yucca, cream-tinted or pink, and fragrant as the breath of summer.
Before the Nature-lover is tired of feasting his eyes upon that stately flower, shall begin to unfold the crumpled draperies of the great Mexican poppy, dotting the hillsides and the mesa with white, as far as the eye can reach. Meanwhile, the earth itself shall suddenly turn to pink, and a close look disclose a tiny, low-growing blossom, sweet as the morning, with the glow of the sunrise in its face; a little bunch of crazy-looking stamens, and tiny snips of petals standing out at all angles, and of all shades on one stem, from white to deep red; the whole no bigger than a gauzy-winged fly, and shaped not unlike one, with a delicious odor that scents the air.
Next day—or next week—wandering over the pathless barrens, the observer may come upon a group of cream-colored satin flowers, wide open to the sun, innocent looking and most tempting to gather. But the great fleshy leaves from which they spring give warning; they belong to the cactus family, and are well armed to protect their treasures from the vagrant hand. The walker—if he be wise—will content himself with looking, nor seek a nearer acquaintance.
While these royal beauties are adorning the highlands, others, perhaps even more lovely, are blooming in the cañons, under the trees, and beside the noisy brooks. First, there is a "riot of roses"—the only expression that adequately suggests the profusion of these beautiful flowers. They grow in enormous bushes, far above one's head, in impenetrable thickets, extending for yards each way.
"Rose hedges
Abloom to the edges."
Every country road is walled in by them; every brookside is glorified by their rich masses of color; and no rocky wall is so bare but here and there a tiny shoot finds root, and open its rosy bloom. All these bushes, from the low-growing sort that holds its mottled and shaded petals three inches above the ground, to that whose top one cannot reach, are simply loaded with blossoms of all shades, from nearly white to deepest rose-color, filling the air with perfume.
The first time one comes upon this lavish display, he—or more probably she—picks a spray from the first bush; she cannot resist the next variety, and before she knows it her arms are full, with temptations as strong as ever before her. She may at last, like "H. H.," take home her roses by the carriage load, or, overwhelmed by their numbers, leave them all on their stems, and enjoy them in mass.
Shyly hiding under the taller shrubs beside the running water, the experienced seeker will find the gilia, one of the gems of Colorado's bouquet. This plant consists of one slender stem two feet or more tall, swayed by every breeze, and set for several inches of its length with daintiest blossoms,—
"Like threaded rubies on its stem."
They are like fairy trumpets, in many shades, from snow white to deep rose, and brilliant scarlet, with great variety of delicate marking visible only under a glass. The stem is so sticky that the flowers must be arranged as they are gathered; for they cling to each other more closely than the fabled "brother," and an attempt to separate them will result in torn flowers.
Anything more exquisite than a vase of gilias alone is rarely seen. The buds are as lovely as the blossoms; new ones open every day, and even the faded ones are not unsightly; their petals are simply turned backward a little. One minute every morning spent in snipping off blossoms that are past their prime insures the happy possessor a bouquet that is a joy forever, even in memory; lovely and fresh, in ever-changing combinations of color and form.
Some day shall be made memorable to the enthusiast by the discovery of a flower which should be named for "H. H.,"—the one which looked so charming from the moving train that her winning tongue brought the iron horse to a pause while it was gathered, "root and branch," for her delectation. Finding the gorgeous spike of golden blossoms without a common name, she called it—most happily—the golden prince's feather. It is to be presumed that it has an unwieldy scientific cognomen in the botanies; but I heard of no common one, except that given by the poet.
While this royal flower is still in bloom, may be found the mariposa, or butterfly lily, small and low on the burning mesa, but more generous in size, and richer of hue, in the shaded cañons.
"Like a bubble borne in air
Floats the shy Mariposa's bell,"
says Susan Coolidge in her beautiful tribute to her beloved friend and poet. The three petals of this exquisite flower form a graceful cup of differing degrees of violet hue, some being nearly white, with the color massed in a rich, deep-toned crescent, low down at the heart of each petal, while others are glowing in the most regal purple.
All these weeks, too, have been blossoming dozens, yes, hundreds of others; every nook and corner is full; every walk brings surprises. Some of our most familiar friends are wanting. One is not surprised that the most common wayside flower of that golden region is the yellow daisy, or sunflower it is called; but she remembers fondly our fields of white daisies, and clumps of gay little buttercups, and she longs for cheery-faced dandelions beside her path. A few of the latter she may find, much larger and more showy than ours; but these—it is said in Colorado Springs—are all from seed imported by an exile for health's sake, who pined for the flowers of home.
Several peculiarities of Colorado flowers are noteworthy. Some have gummy or sticky stems, like the gilia, already mentioned, and others again are "clinging," by means of a certain roughness of stem and leaf. The mentzelia is of this nature; half a dozen stalks can with difficulty be separated; and they seem even to attract any light substance, like fringe or lace, holding so closely to it that they must be torn apart.
Many of the prettiest flowers are, like our milkweed, nourished by a milky juice, and when severed from the parent stem, not only weep thick white tears, which stain the hands and the garments, but utterly refuse to subsist on water, and begin at once to droop. Is it the vitality in the air which forces even the plants to eccentricities? Or can it be that they have not yet been subdued into uniformity like ours? Are they unconventional—nearer to wild Nature? So queries an unscientific lover of them all.
This slight sketch of a few flowers gives hardly a hint of the richness of Colorado's flora. No words can paint the profusion and the beauty. I have not here even mentioned some of the most notable: the great golden columbine, the State flower, to which our modest blossom is an insignificant weed;
"The fairy lilies, straight and tall,
Like torches lit for carnival;"
the primrose, opening at evening a disk three or four inches across, loaded with richest perfume, and changed to odorless pink before morning; exquisite vetches, with bloom like our sweet pea, and of more than fifty varieties; harebells in great clumps, and castilleias which dot the State with scarlet; rosy cyclamens "on long, lithe stems that soar;" and mertensias, whose delicate bells, blue as a baby's eyes, turn day by day to pink; the cleome, which covers Denver with a purple veil; the whole family of pentstemons, and hundreds of others.
An artist in Colorado Springs, who has given her heart, almost her life, to fixing in imperishable color the floral wealth about her, has painted over three hundred varieties of Colorado wild-flowers, and her list is still incomplete.
It is not pleasant to mar this record of beauty, but one thing must be mentioned. The luxuriance of the flowers is already greatly diminished by the unscrupulousness of the tourists who swarm in the flower season, especially, I am sorry to say, women. Not content with filling their hands with flowers, they fill their arms and even their carriage, if they have one. Moreover, the hold of the plant on the light, sandy soil is very slight; and the careless gatherer, not provided with knife or scissors, will almost invariably pull the root with the flower, thus totally annihilating that plant. When one witnesses such greediness, and remembers that these vandals are in general on the wing, and cannot stay to enjoy what they have rifled, but will leave it all to be thrown out by hotel servants the next morning, he cannot wonder at the indignation of the residents toward the traveler, nor that "No admittance" notices are put up, and big dogs kept, and that "tourist" is a name synonymous with "plunderer," and bitterly hated by the people.
I have seen a party of ladies—to judge by their looks—with arms so full of the golden columbine that it seemed they could not hold another flower, whose traveling dress and equipments showed them to be mere transient passers through, who could not possibly make use of so many. Half a dozen blossoms would have given as much pleasure as half a hundred, and be much more easily cared for, besides leaving a few for their successors to enjoy. The result is, of course, plain to see: a few more years of plunder, and Colorado will be left bare, and lose half her charm.
One beautiful place near Colorado Springs, Glen Eyrie, belonging to General Palmer, was generously left open for every one to enjoy by driving through; but, incredible as it seems, his hospitality was so abused, his lovely grounds rifled, not only of wild-flowers, but even of cultivated flowers and plants, that he was forced at last to put up notices that the public was allowed to "drive through without dismounting."