"It's everywhere," said Lou. "Look, it even grows in cracks half-way up the rocks."
The man also pointed out the tiny stars of the Houstonia, which interested the boys, because their Massachusetts home was near the Housatonic River. But the botanist assured them that there was no connection between the names, the flower being named for a botanist named Houston, while the river's name is Indian.
There were several other kinds of flowers here, too, as well as grasses, and conspicuous among them was the Indian poke, sticking up its tall stalk three feet in the boggy hollows between rocks, its roots in the wet tundra moss, with yellowish-green blossoms at the top.
"Well, who'd ever guess so many things could live way up here, on the rocks!" Lou exclaimed. "But I like the little sandwort best. That's the one which gets nearest the top of Washington, isn't it?"
"It's the only one which gets there, except the grass, I believe," the bugler answered.
Everybody picked a few sandwort cups, and stuck them in his hat band or buttonhole, and thus arrayed they reached once more the junction of the Boott Spur Trail, shouldered packs, and set off southward, down the long, rocky shoulder of the spur, which pushes out from the base of the summit cone.
