A depressed rigid shrub, with many slender, decumbent stems, curving upward and forming a circular mass frequently 10 feet in diameter and 18 inches high; bark reddish-brown; leaves numerous ⅓—½ an inch long, awl-shaped, rigid, spreading nearly at right angles to the branches, linear-lanceolate, acute, and tipped with sharp, slender points; channelled and whitened above, lustrous green beneath; berry-like cones, blue and glaucous, subglobose or oblong about ¼ of an inch in diameter. On dry hills and stony slopes throughout the region. [Illustration: Picea albertiana S. Brown. (½ Nat.) Alberta Spruce.] [Illustration: Picea albertiana S. Brown. (½ Nat.) Alberta Spruce.] [Sidenote: =Juniperus prostrata= Pers. _Shrubby Red Cedar._] A depressed, creeping shrub seldom more than a foot high, with spreading branches; bark grayish-brown; leaves scale-like, appressed, 4-ranked, acute, with a short spiny point; berry-like cones, light blue and glaucous, a third of an inch in diameter. On dry stony ground and slopes throughout the Rockies. [Sidenote: =Thuja plicata= Don. _Giant Cedar._] A tree frequently 200 feet high with a broad, gradually tapering buttressed base sometimes 15 feet in diameter; branches short, horizontal, usually pendulous at the ends, bright yellow-green during the first year, becoming reddish-brown and lustrous; bark thin, cinnamon-red, divided into broad rounded ridges by shallow fissures; leaves ovate, long pointed, ¼ of an inch long or less; cones purplish-brown, much reflexed, clustered at the ends of the branches, ½ inch long with 6 oblong thin leathery scales with thickened spine-bearing tips. Occasionally met with in the lower valleys on the western slope of the Rockies; becoming an immense forest tree in the moist valleys of the Selkirks where it forms a striking feature of the landscape. TAXACEÆ _Yew Family_ Trees or shrubs with narrow flat evergreen or deciduous leaves and a drupe-like fruit. [Sidenote: =Taxus brevifolia= Nutt. _Western Yew._] A small straggling tree or shrub seldom over 20 feet high and up to 12 inches in diameter; bark thin, covered with greenish-purple scales; leaves about ½ an inch long, linear-lanceolate, flat, dark yellowish-green above, paler below with stout midribs and rigid points; fruit a fleshy crimson disc ⅓ of an inch long and as broad, surrounding the hard, nearly black, depressed seed. Occurs locally in the Selkirks, forming much of the underwood on Beaver Creek. ARACEÆ _Arum Family_ Smooth perennial herbs with tuberous or corn-like rootstocks and mostly basal, large showy leaves; flowers small and numerously crowded on a spadix which is generally surrounded or subtended by a simple showy leaf-like organ called a spathe. A very numerous family found mostly in the tropics and represented in our region by but a single species. [Sidenote: =Lysichiton kamtschatcense= (L.) Schott. _Western Skunk Cabbage._]