Standing On The Edge Of The Strawberry Meadows In The Sun-Days Of
Summer, Not A Foot Or Feather Or Leaf Seems To Stir; And The Grand,
Towering Mountain With All Its Inhabitants Appears In Rest, Calm As A
Star.
Yet how profound is the energy ever in action, and how great is
the multitude of claws and teeth, wings and eyes, wide awake and at
work and shining!
Going into the blessed wilderness, the blood of the
plants throbbing beneath the life-giving sunshine seems to be heard
and felt; plant growth goes on before our eyes, and every tree and
bush and flower is seen as a hive of restless industry. The deeps of
the sky are mottled with singing wings of every color and tone - clouds
of brilliant chrysididae dancing and swirling in joyous rhythm,
golden-barred vespidae, butterflies, grating cicadas and jolly
rattling grasshoppers - fairly enameling the light, and shaking all the
air into music. Happy fellows they are, every one of them, blowing
tiny pipe and trumpet, plodding and prancing, at work or at play.
Though winter holds the summit, Shasta in summer is mostly a massy,
bossy mound of flowers colored like the alpenglow that flushes the
snow. There are miles of wild roses, pink bells of huckleberry and
sweet manzanita, every bell a honey-cup, plants that tell of the north
and of the south; tall nodding lilies, the crimson sarcodes,
rhododendron, cassiope, and blessed linnaea; phlox, calycanthus, plum,
cherry, crataegus, spiraea, mints, and clovers in endless variety;
ivesia, larkspur, and columbine; golden aplopappus, linosyris[5],
bahia, wyethia, arnica, brodiaea, etc., - making sheets and beds of
light edgings of bloom in lavish abundance for the myriads of the air
dependent on their bounty.
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