A lot of people don't think about or realize that the higher the mountain, the shorter grows the trees. The subalpine zone begins where the forests of the mountain are composed of trees that are decidedly lower in stature than those of the middle elevations.

At first the forests, although low, are thick and dense, but they gradually become more open and interrupted by areas of scrub and grassland.

The trees become deformed, bent and twisted by the wind, and at the upper edge of the zone, upright trees cease entirely. Thus, begins the alpine zone, which continues to the top, or until it encounters a cap of perpetual snow and ice.

Spruce, fir, and pine trees grow in the alpine zone, but with prostrate trunks and low matted branches. There are also stretches covered with shrubs, among which willows and heaths are abundant.

Most extensive of all the alpine associations are the alpine meadows, in which dwarf plants of an infinite variety are rich with flowers of a hundred hues.

These often take the form of mats, or cushions, with short stems, small leave, rather large roots, but with flowers of large size and brilliant colors.

In the alpine zone spring, summer, and autumn are compressed into the few warm weeks of midsummer. Very few spring plants are in bloom before June, and the autumn flowers are passing before the end of August. The same shortening of the season is found to lesser extent among the subalpine flowers.

So what does this have to do with wildflowers found in this region? The answer is simple and obvious, the higher the mountain, the shorter and smaller the flowers.  However, it's often been my observation, that hand-in-hand, with diminished stature and size -- goes incredibile beauty.  Higher elevation wildflowers are some of nature's most incredibles.

"The graceful columbine, all blushing red,

Bends to the earth her crown

Of honey-laden bells."

The Red Columbine (Aquilegia) is not confined to the mountains, but is scattered over hillsides far to the east and north, here in America. From a cluster of divided leaves, it sends up light, airy stems a foot or two high, branching and bearing large drooping flowers and buds that open in succession.

The flowers consist of five red sepals and five red petals. The former expand like petals, and the latter are extended backward into long hollow spurs terminating in knobs filled with honey.

The flowers are usually scarlet, with the edges of the petals golden yellow. From the center of the flower, the numerous stamens and the five slender styles hang as a golden tassel. So handsome is the columbine, that it finds a place in many gardens.

Even more beautiful is the Blue Columbine, which reaches its perfection in the subalpine parts of the Colorado mountains and has been most happily chosen as the state flower of Colorado. Larger than the red, its flowers are two inches across and of less drooping habit.

The spurs are long and stright, but still reich in nectar. In color it ranges from deep blue to nearly white, the lighter shades being more plentiful as it finds shelter nooks among the alpine rocks.

Nor, does this exhaust the list of these showy flowers, for the mountain-climber will occasionally found a small blue one near the top of the peaks, and many large yellow ones grow on the slopes below.

Widely scattered through the mountains and fringing streams, are found the tiny blue yellow-centered disks of the Forget-me-nots. The flowers are arranged in loose one-sided spikes and are equally attractive whether they belong to the false or true varieties.

The False Forget-me-not (Lappula) has rather larger flowers. Its rotate corolla is a quarter of an inch across, and its fruit is made of four little nutlets armed with barbed prickles. These tiny burs also give the plant the name of Sticktights, but the beauty of the flowers should attract more attention than the prickles of the fruit.

The true Forget-me-not (Myostis alpina) has no burs, and the tiny flowers are quite fragrant. The plant is seldom more than six inches high.

Many romantic legends are connected with these emblems of friendship and affection, a most charming one running:

When to the flowers so beautiful

The Father gave a name,

There came a little blue-eyed one (All timidly it came),

And standing at the Father's feet,

And gazing in his face,

It said, in low and trembling tones,

Yet with a gentle grace:

"Dear Lord, the name Thou gavest me,

Alas! I have forgot."

Kindly the Father looked him down

And said: "Forget me not."

Another still smaller and even more beautiful Forget-me-not (Eritrichium) may be found by those who climb to the top of the highest mountains. This dwarf beauty is scarcely an inch high. It's little leaves are covered with soft white hairs. It's tiny flowers are of the clearest sky-blue. It is one of the rewards for the most adventurous of mountain climbers.

Another beautiful blue flower belonging to the same Borage plant family, has the flowers with a tube-like corolla that makes the name Bluebell seem even more appropriate.

Two or three species of this flower (Mertensia) droop over the mountain streams -- the alpine form not more than six inches high -- while lower down the slopes and species, are two or three feet high, very similar to their Eastern cousins, known as Lungworts, or Virginia cowslips. The buds are bright pink, but as they open they turn gradually to deep blue.

Found in poetry and song, this delicate flower, the true Bluebell of Scotland, sung by poets of every age, is found abundantly on the western mountains and even on the eastern hills of America.  Furthermore, they are not always blue, sometimes they are white and purple.

An extremely hardy plant, the Harebell (Campanula rotundifolia) is found perched on precipitous rocks, anchored in the crevices of cliffs, or growing on the gravelly slopes of the alpine meadows, where its delicate bells swing and bend, but never break, before the sweeping winds.

Its name rotundifolia refers to the round basal leaves of the plant which wither early, while the narrow pointed stem leaves are present when the flowers appear.

Near the foot of the mountain, it is more than a foot tall, but in the alpine zone it is dwarfed to a fourth of that height.

The erect buds droop on their slender stalks as they open into bells of the purest dark blue. The bell-shaped corolla, with its five lobes, retains its full size on the highest mountains, being always more than a half inch long.

"Flowers that with one scarlet gleam

Cover a hundred leagues, and seem

To set the hills on fire." -- Wordsworth

No grander sight may be seen by travelers along the tree-line of the mountains than the wonderful slopes carpeted with the yellow, scarlet, crimson, and purple masses of the Painted Cups.

Red Indian Paint Brushes they are sometimes called, since the massive spikes resemble brushes dipped in red paint.

The plant owes its brilliancy of color, not to the flowers themselves, but to the prolonged and red tipped bracts, or reduced leaves, which stand one below each flower and almost hide it from view.

Even the calyx is commonly more brilliantly red than the slender two-lipped corolla tube that often is merely a tint of greenish yellow tinged with red.

It scarcely projects beyond the bracts, but bracts and flowers together form a dense spike. In height, the plants vary from six inches to two feet, the best display being usually made by the shorter plants.

While it reaches its best development just below the alpine region of the mountains, the Painted Cup descends to the plains and goes far to the east, where the poet Bryant described them as:

"All glowing in the green like lakes of fire;

The wanderers of the prairie know them well,

And call the brilliant flower the painted cup."

On dry rock slopes of the mountains snow-white patches appear in the late spring that on closer examination prove to be low mats of Phlox entirely covered with white flowers.

The corolla is salver-formed with a five-lobed border, and five stamens are within its tube. At times, however, the white is tongued with pink or purple. The leaves are needle-like, clustered about the stems so that they loosely overlap.

Although the Alpine Phlox descends to the plains and minges with the short grass, it still retains its dwarf, matted, alpine habits.

The Prairie Phlox, however, grows a foot tall, and brings its flat-topped clusters of reddish purple flowers high up among the grasses.

During July and August, the Arnicas are the most conspicuous yellow flowers of the higher moutain regions. They take the place held by the sunflowers on the plains, and it would not be far wrong to call them Alphine Sunflowers.

Belonging to the Composite plant family, both the disk and ray flowers are bright yellow, two or three inches across, and are supported on stems about a foot high. These stems are seldom branched, but carry three or four pairs of somewhat arrow-shaped leaves.

Several varieties are easily distinguished. The Heart-leaved Arnicas grows abundantly in the rather open woods of the subalphine, while the more slender and graceful Alpine Arnicas is nearer the top of the high peaks of mountains.

In the latter, there are from ten to twelve golden ray flowers about the yellow disk, each ray being double-notched at the apex.

The seeds are furnished with a pappus of tufted bristly hairs that float them in the mountain breezes.

Among many native American tribes Arnicas is well known as an herbal remedy for many ailments, some of them are:

• Wounds
• Boils
• Anti-inflmatory