Above an altitude of approximately 9,000 feet, the forests show a different aspect. This is another zone, called the Subalpine by some botanists and Canadian by others. It is characterized by forests of stately ENGELMANN SPRUCE and SUBALPINE FIR. You can tell one from the other by touching the needles. Spruce needles are 4-sided, rigid to the touch, and sharp-pointed; fir needles are flattened and softer to the touch. From your car, you can spot the firs by their erect, dark-colored cones, mostly high in the tree. This type of forest is the climax developed in this climatic belt, which receives twice as much snow and rain as the zone below. This relatively abundant moisture (much less, however, than in most of the Eastern States with their broadleaf forests) supports a luxuriant conifer cover. Wildflower gardens of rare beauty and startling luxuriance are found in natural openings within the forest. The distinctive blue COLORADO COLUMBINE, which ranges from the lowest elevations up to 13,000 feet, seems to reach its best development here. Other plants of the open forests in this zone include WHITE GLOBE-FLOWER with its cream-colored, cup-shaped flower; COLUMBIA MONKSHOOD, with its helmeted blue or white flowers; ELKSLIP MARSH-MARIGOLD, with numerous oval white sepals often mistaken for petals; and the strikingly beautiful PARRY PRIMROSE, with clusters of brilliant purple flowers, often growing along the edge of a stream. Common shrubs include GREENES MOUNTAIN-ASH, whose large clusters of white flowers are replaced by bright red berries in autumn; BEARBERRY HONEYSUCKLE, better known in the Rockies as twinberry, a honeysuckle with large ovate leaves 3 to 5 inches long and pairs of yellow flowers; and wild AMERICAN RED RASPBERRY, with prickly stems, 5-petaled white flowers, and delicious red fruit, relished by birds and hikers alike. In the cool, shadowed depths of the forest where light is dim, another community of plants is found, including CALYPSO, or “fairy-slipper,” a dainty orchid with rose-colored blossoms formed in a curious slipperlike shape; the PYROLAS, a group of low, hardy perennial herbs with white or pink flowers having 5 thick petals and 10 stamens; SPOTTED CORALROOT, a plant which, getting its nourishment from decaying vegetation, has no green leaves, but bears purple-spotted flowers on its brown stem; and AMERICAN TWINFLOWER, a trailing plant of the honeysuckle family, often forming dense mats with upright, forked flower stems bearing a pair of pink, bell-shaped flowers. [Illustration: Blue columbine—Colorado’s State flower.]