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Steep Trails by John Muir
page 96 of 268 (35%)
saints, ancient and Latter-Day, enduring forever!" After he had
recovered from his astonishment he said, "They are nice."

The other liliaceous plants I have met in Utah are two species of
zigadenas, Fritillaria atropurpurea, Calochortus Nuttallii, and three
or four handsome alliums. One of these lilies, the calochortus,
several species of which are well known in California as the "Mariposa
tulips," has received great consideration at the hands of the Mormons,
for to it hundreds of them owe their lives. During the famine years
between 1853 and 1858, great destitution prevailed, especially in the
southern settlements, on account of drouth and grasshoppers, and
throughout one hungry winter in particular, thousands of the people
subsisted chiefly on the bulbs of the tulips, called "sego" by the
Indians, who taught them its use.

Liliaceous women and girls are rare among the Mormons. They have seen
too much hard, repressive toil to admit of the development of lily
beauty either in form or color. In general they are thickset, with
large feet and hands, and with sun-browned faces, often curiously
freckled like the petals of Fritillaria atropurpurea. They are fruit
rather than flower--good brown bread. But down in the San Pitch
Valley at Gunnison, I discovered a genuine lily, happily named Lily
Young. She is a granddaughter of Brigham Young, slender and graceful,
with lily-white cheeks tinted with clear rose, She was brought up in
the old Salt Lake Zion House, but by some strange chance has been
transplanted to this wilderness, where she blooms alone, the "Lily of
San Pitch." Pitch is an old Indian, who, I suppose, pitched into the
settlers and thus acquired fame enough to give name to the valley.
Here I feel uneasy about the name of this lily, for the compositors
have a perverse trick of making me say all kinds of absurd things
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