On the higher mountains of North America above the upper limit at which trees are able to grow there are picturesque regions carpeted and garlanded in late spring and summer with lovely flowers, the indescribable charms of which are only known to those who rejoice in climbing rugged peaks and in following the trails of the mountain-goat along sharp-crested ridges. The gorgeous blossoms of these roof-gardens of the world are much the same on all high mountains in temperate latitudes, but from having become first widely known to civilized man on the mountains of Switzerland, are generally termed alpine flowers. The most attractive features of an alpine flora, which springs into bloom as soon as the snow melts and forms a rapidly widening belt of colour as the margins of the snow-fields recede higher and higher, is the great profusion of brilliantly coloured blossoms. No sooner does the snow of winter melt than the moist ground becomes enamelled in brilliant colours on account of the springing up and quick blossoming of millions of hardy plants. The growing season on mountain heights is short, but the sun's energy is there more intense and the hours of light each day longer than in the valleys below, and the plants adapted to such conditions pass through their annual circle of changes from sprouting seed to mature fruit with remarkable rapidity. In many instances the mountain-climber finds beautiful lilies unfolding their sun-dyed blossoms at the bottom of well-like depressions in lingering snow-banks. The gleaming mountain-peaks when seen from afar are said to be crowned with snow, but the mountaineer rejoices in the knowledge that their cold diadems are wreathed and festooned about their lower margins with lovely blossoms. Many mountains less ambitious than their neighbours have the garlands without the crown. An alpine flora is present on the Pacific mountains from Mexico northward to Alaska. Like the "timber-line" and the "snow-line," the intermediate belt of profusely flowering herbaceous plants descends lower and lower with decrease in latitude; on the great volcanic cones of Mexico it has an elevation of over 15,000 feet; on the Sierra Nevada the greatest wealth of flowers occurs at about 12,000 feet; on Mount Rainier widely extended gardens resplendent with rainbow tints occur at 7,000 to 8,000 feet; and about the foot-hills near Mount St. Elias, at an elevation of 2,500 feet or less above the sea, every knoll and island-like area in the vast ice-fields is so densely overgrown with brilliantly flowered plants that one has to part the rank growths with his hands and press them aside with his alpenstick in order to force a way through the fields of bloom. Admirers of nature's loveliness who have not climbed to aspiring heights will find a new and beautiful world in the public alpine garden on the summit and about the snow-fields of the higher portions of the Pacific mountains,