Part 6

Shrubby; very leafy. _Leaves._--Alternate; nearly sessile; narrowly oblanceolate; acute; tomentose beneath; glabrous above; three to nine lines long; much fascicled. _Flowers._--White or pinkish; in densely crowded compound clusters; several perianths contained in the involucres. _Involucres._--Campanulate; five- or six-nerved and toothed; two lines high. _Perianth._--Minute; of six nearly equal segments. (See _Eriogonum umbellatum_.) _Hab._--Santa Barbara and southward; east to Arizona.

The wild buckwheat is a characteristic feature of the southern landscape. It is a charming plant when in full bloom, and its feathery clusters of pinkish-white flowers show finely against the warm olive tones of its foliage. It is a very important honey plant, as it yields an exceptionally pure nectar and remains in bloom a long time. Growing near the sea, it is often close-cropped and shorn by the wind, and then it quite closely resembles the _Adenostoma_, or chamisal.

Another very widely distributed and common species is _E. nudum_, Dougl. Every one is familiar with its tall, green, naked, rushlike stems, bearing on the ends of the branchlets the small balls of white or pinkish flowers. Its leaves are all radical, smooth green above and densely white-woolly beneath.

SIERRA PLUM. WILD PLUM.

_Prunus subcordata_, Benth. Rose Family.

Trees or shrubs three to ten feet high, with ash-gray bark and branchlets occasionally spinescent. _Leaves._--Short-petioled; ovate; sharply and finely serrate; an inch or two long. _Umbels._--Two- to four-flowered. Pedicels three to six lines long. _Flowers._--White; six lines across. _Fruit._--Red or purple; six to fifteen lines long; fleshy; smooth. (Otherwise as _P. ilicifolia_.) _Hab._--Mostly eastward of the Central Valley, from San Felipe into Oregon.

The wild plum reaches its greatest perfection in the north, where the shrubs are found in extensive groves covering whole mountain slopes.

The flowers, which are produced before the leaves, from March to May, are white, fading to rose-color. By August and September, the bushes are loaded with the handsome fruit, richly mottled with red, yellow, and purple; and these colors are duplicated in the autumn foliage, which in the North becomes very brilliant.

This fruit is excellent for canning, preserving, and making into jelly. Many families make annual pilgrimages to these wild-plum orchards of the mountains and carry away bushels of the fruit; but even then countless tons of it go to waste.

_P. demissa_, Walpers,--the wild cherry or choke-cherry,--is found upon mountains throughout the State, but less abundantly near the coast. Its small white flowers grow in racemes three or four inches long, and these ripen into the pretty shining black cherries, half an inch in diameter. It often covers acres upon acres of rough land, and commences to bear when but two feet high.

Housewives of our mountain districts make a marmalade of the fruit, which has a peculiarly delicious, tart flavor.

ELLISIA.

_Ellisia chrysanthemifolia_, Benth. Baby-eyes or Waterleaf Family.

More or less hairy. _Stems._--Loosely branching; a foot or so high. _Leaves._--Mostly opposite; auricled at base; twice- or thrice-parted into many short, small lobes. _Flowers._--In loose racemes; white; three lines or so across. _Calyx._--Five-cleft; without appendages at the sinuses; almost equaling the corolla. _Corolla._--Open-campanulate; having ten minute scales at base within. _Stamens._--Five. _Ovary._--One-celled; globose. Style slender; two-cleft. _Hab._--San Francisco to San Diego.

These little plants, with delicately dissected leaves, are common in moist, shaded localities; but, unfortunately, their foliage has a very strong odor, which just escapes being agreeable. Their general aspect is somewhat similar to that of some of the small species of _Nemophila_; but the lack of appendages upon the calyx reveals their separate identity. It blooms freely from March to June, and is especially abundant southward.

MADROÑO. MADRONE.

_Arbutus Menziesii_, Pursh. Heath Family.

Shrubs or trees. _Leaves._--Alternate; petioled; oblong; entire or serrulate; four inches or so long. _Flowers._--White; waxen; in large clusters. _Calyx._--Five-cleft; minute; white. _Corolla._--Broadly urn-shaped; three lines long; with five minute, recurved teeth. _Stamens._--Ten; on the corolla. Filaments dilated; bearded. Anthers two-celled; saccate; opening terminally; furnished with a pair of reflexed horns near the summit. _Ovary._--Five-celled. Style rather long. _Fruit._--A cluster of scarlet-orange berries, with rough granular coats. _Hab._--Puget Sound to Mexico and Texas; specially in the Coast Ranges.

Captain of the Western wood, Thou that apest Robin Hood! Green above thy scarlet hose, How thy velvet mantle shows; Never tree like thee arrayed, O thou gallant of the glade!

When the fervid August sun Scorches all it looks upon, And the balsam of the pine Drips from stem to needle fine, Round thy compact shade arranged, Not a leaf of thee is changed!

When the yellow autumn sun Saddens all it looks upon, Spreads its sackcloth on the hills, Strews its ashes in the rills, Thou thy scarlet hose dost doff, And in limbs of purest buff Challengest the somber glade For a sylvan masquerade.

Where, oh where shall he begin Who would paint thee, Harlequin? With thy waxen, burnished leaf, With thy branches' red relief, With thy poly-tinted fruit, In thy spring or autumn suit,-- Where begin, and oh, where end,-- Thou whose charms all art transcend?

--BRET HARTE.

The name "madroño" was applied by the early Spanish-Californians to this tree because of its strong resemblance and close relationship to the _Arbutus unido_, or strawberry-tree of the Mediterranean countries, which was called madroño in Spain.

Our madroño, though but a large shrub in the south, increases in size northward, and reaches its maximum development in Marin County, where there are some superb specimens of it. One tree upon the shores of Lake Lagunitas measures more than twenty-three feet in circumference and a hundred feet in height, and sends out many large branches, each two or three feet in diameter.

A large part of the forest growth on the northern slopes of Mt. Tamalpais is composed of it; and as it is an evergreen, it forms a mountain wall of delightful and refreshing green the year around. The bark on the younger limbs, which is of a rich Indian red, begins to peel off in thin layers about midsummer, leaving a clear, smooth, greenish-buff surface, and strewing the forest floor with its warm shreds, which mingling with the exquisite tones of its ripened leaves, which have fallen at about the same time, make a carpet equal in beauty of coloring to that under the English beeches. It is thoroughly patrician in all its parts. The leaves which are clustered at the ends of the slender twigs are rich, polished green above, and somewhat paler beneath.

In the spring it puts forth great panicles of small, white, waxen bells, which call the bees to a sybaritic feast, and in the autumn it spreads a no less inviting repast in its great clusters of fine scarlet berries for the blue pigeons who visit it in large flocks.

The wood of the madrone is hard and close-grained, of a light brown, shaded with red, with lighter-colored sap-wood. It is used in the manufacture of furniture, but is particularly valuable for the making of charcoal to be used in the composition of gunpowder. The bark is sometimes used in tanning leather.

WILD WHITE LILAC.

_Ceanothus velutinus_, Dougl. Buckthorn Family.

Widely branching shrubs, two to six feet or more high. _Leaves._--Alternate; petioled; roundish, or broadly ovate; eighteen lines to three inches long; polished, resinous above; somewhat pubescent beneath; strongly three-nerved. _Flowers._--White; three lines across; in large, dense, compound clusters four or five inches long and wide. (See _Ceanothus_ for flower structure.) _Hab._--Coast Ranges; Columbia River, southward to San Francisco Bay; also eastward to Colorado.

Its ample bright-green, highly varnished leaves and large white flower-clusters make this a very beautiful species of _Ceanothus_. The foliage is glutinous with a gummy exudation, which has a rather disagreeable odor. Yet the shrub would be very handsome in cultivation.

WHITE NEMOPHILA.

_Nemophila atomaria_, Fisch. and Mey. Baby-eyes or Waterleaf Family.

_Corolla._--Pure white, closely dark-dotted nearly to the edge; an inch or less across; densely hairy within the tube. Scales of the corolla narrow, with long hairs. (Otherwise as _N. insignis_.) _Hab._--Central California.

This delicate _Nemophila_ haunts wet, springy places among the hills, and is at its best in early spring. There are a number of small-flowered forms of _Nemophila_ which have been hitherto referred to _N. parviflora_, but which the future will probably prove to constitute a number of species.

_N. maculata_, Benth., found in Middle California and the High Sierras, is a charming form, with large flowers, whose petals bear strong violet blotches at the top.

RATTLE-WEED. LOCO-WEED.

_Astragalus leucopsis_, Torr. and Gray. Pea Family.

_Stems._--A foot or so high. _Leaflets._--In many pairs; six lines or more long. _Flowers._--Greenish-white; six lines long; in spikelike racemes an inch or two long. _Calyx._--With teeth more than half the length of the campanulate-tube. _Pod._--Thin; bladdery-inflated; an inch or more long, on a smooth stalk twice or thrice the length of the calyx-tube. (See Astragalus.) _Hab._--Santa Barbara to San Diego.

These plants are very noticeable and quite pretty, with their pale foliage, symmetrical leaves, and white flowers; but they are dreaded by the farmers of the region of their growth, who aver that they are deadly loco-weeds. It is said that native stock will not touch them; but animals brought from a distance and unacquainted with them, eat them, with dreadful results of loco.

We have numerous species, all rather difficult of determination.

WILD MORNING-GLORY.

_Convolvulus luteolus_, Gray. Morning-Glory Family.

_Stems._--Twining and climbing twenty feet or more. _Leaves._--Alternate; sagittate; two inches or so long; smooth. _Peduncles._--Several-flowered; axillary, with two small linear-lanceolate bracts a little below the flower. _Flowers._--Cream-color or pinkish, sometimes deep rose. _Sepals._--Five; without bracts immediately below them. _Corolla._--Open funnel-form; eighteen lines long; not lobed or angled. _Stamens._--Five. _Ovary._--Globose; two-celled or imperfectly four-celled. Style filiform. Stigmas two. _Hab._--Throughout California.

I remember long stretches of mountain road where the wild morning-glory has completely covered the unsightly shrubs charred by a previous year's fire, flinging out its slender stems, lacing and interlacing them in airy festoons, which are covered with the fragile flowers in greatest profusion. In these tangles, the industrious spiders have hung their exquisite geometrical webs, which catch the glittering water-drops in their meshes. When the sun comes out after a dense, cool fog-bath on a summer morning, nothing more charmingly fresh could be imagined than such a scene.

The common morning-glory of the south--_C. occidentalis_, Gray--is very similar to the above, but may be distinguished from it by the pair of large, thin bracts immediately below the calyx and enveloping it.

Another very pretty species is _C. villosus_, Gray. This is widely distributed, but not very common. Its trailing stems and foliage are of a velvety sage-gray throughout, and its small flowers of a yellowish cream-color. The hastate leaves are shapely, and the whole plant is charming when grown away from dust.

The common European bindweed--_C. arvensis_, L.--is to the farmer a very unwelcome little immigrant. In fields it becomes a serious pest; for the more its roots are disturbed and broken up the better it thrives. But despite its bad character, we cannot help admiring its pretty little white funnels, which lift themselves so debonairly among the prostrate stems and leaves.

In medicine a tincture of the whole plant is valued for several uses.

WOOD-BALM. PITCHER-SAGE.

_Sphacele calycina_, Benth. Mint Family.

Woody at the base; two to five feet high; hairy or woolly. _Leaves._--Two to four inches long. _Flowers._--Dull white or purplish; an inch or more long; mostly solitary in the upper axils. _Calyx._--Five-cleft. _Corolla._--Having a hairy ring at base within. _Stamens._--Four, in two pairs. _Ovary._--Of four seedlike nutlets. Style filiform. Stigma two-lobed. _Hab._--Dry hills. San Francisco Bay, southward.

The wood-balm is closely allied to the sages, which fact is betrayed by its opposite, wrinkly, sage-scented leaves; but its flowers have quite a different aspect. These are ample and cylindrical, with a five-lobed border, one of the lobes being prolonged into somewhat of a lip.

The generic name is from the Greek word meaning _sage_; and the specific name, signifying _cuplike_, refers to the shape of the blossoms.

The dwellers among our southern mountains, with that happy instinct possessed by those who live close to the heart of nature, have aptly named this "pitcher-sage."

After the flowers have passed away, the large inflated, light-green calyxes, densely crowded upon the stems, become quite conspicuous.

YUCCA-PALM. TREE-YUCCA. JOSHUA-TREE.

_Yucca arborescens_, Trelease. Lily Family.

Scraggly trees; thirty, or forty feet high; with trunks one or two feet in diameter. _Leaves._--Eight inches long; crowded; rigid; spine-tipped; serrulate; the older ones reflexed and sun-bleached, the younger ashy-green. _Flowers._--In sessile, ovate panicles, terminating the branches. Panicles several inches long. _Perianth._--Narrowly campanulate; eighteen to thirty lines long. _Fruit._--Two or three inches long. (Otherwise as _Y. Mohavensis_.) _Hab._--Southwestern Utah to the Mojave Desert.

The traveler crossing the Mojave Desert upon the railroad has his curiosity violently aroused by certain fantastic tree forms that whirl by the car windows. These are the curious Joshua-trees of the Mormons, which are called in California tree-yucca or yucca-palm. A writer in "The Land of Sunshine" thus aptly characterizes them: "Weird, twisted, demoniacal, the yuccas remind me of those enchanted forests described by Dante, whose trees were human creatures in torment. In twisted groups or standing isolated, they may readily be imagined specters of the plains."

Mr. Sargent tells us that, though found much to the eastward of our borders, it abounds in the Mojave Desert, where it attains its largest size and forms a belt of gaunt, straggling forest several miles in width along the desert's western rim.

Its flowers appear from March to May, but are not at all attractive, on account of their soiled white color and disagreeable, fetid odor. "The unopened panicles form conspicuous cones eight to ten inches long, covered with closely overlapping white scales, often flushed with purple at the apex."

The seeds are gathered and used by the omnivorous Indians, who grind them into meal, which they eat either raw or cooked as a mush. The wood furnishes an excellent material for paper pulp, and some years ago an English company established a mill at Ravenna, in Soledad Pass, for its manufacture. It is said that several editions of a London journal were printed upon it, but owing to the great cost of its manufacture, the enterprise had to be abandoned.

The light wood is put to many uses now, and in the curio bazaars of the south it plays a conspicuous part, made into many small articles. By sawing round and round the trunk of the tree, thin sheets of considerable size are procured. A sepia reproduction of one of the old missions upon the ivory-tinted ground of one of these combines sentiment and novelty in a very pretty souvenir. Surgeons find these same sheets excellent for splints, as they are unyielding in one direction and pliable in the other; and orchardists wrap them around the bases of their trees to protect them from the gnawing of rabbits.

COMMON ELDER.

_Sambucus glauca_, Nutt. Honeysuckle Family.

Shrubby or arborescent; often thirty feet high; with finely fissured bark. _Leaves._--Opposite; petioled; pinnate. _Leaflets._--Three to nine; lanceolate; acuminate; serrate; two inches or so long; smooth. _Flowers._--Minute; two or three lines across; in large, flat, five-branched cymes; white. _Calyx._--Five-toothed. _Corolla._--Rotate; five-lobed. _Stamens._--Five; alternate with the corolla lobes. _Ovary._--Three- to five-celled. Stigmas of same number. _Berries._--Small; dark blue, with a dense white bloom. _Hab._--Throughout the State; common.

The elder is one of our most widely distributed shrubs, and is a familiar sight upon almost every open glade or plain. It is especially abundant in the south. Its flower-clusters, made up of myriads of tiny cream-white blossoms, make a showy but delicate and lacelike mat, while its berries are beautiful and inviting. The bears are especially appreciative of these, and we have sometimes seen their footprints leading along a lonely mountain road to the elder-berry bushes. The fruit is prized by our housewives for pies and preserves, and it would doubtless make as good wine as that of the Eastern species.

Among the Spanish-Californians the blossoms are known as "sauco" and are regarded as an indispensable household remedy for colds. They are administered in the form of a tea, which induces a profuse perspiration. It is said that Dr. Boerhaave held the elder in such reverence for the multitude of its virtues, that he always removed his hat when he passed it.

In ancient times the elder was the subject of many strange superstitions. In his interesting book, "The Folk-Lore of Plants," Mr. Thistleton Dyer says that it was reputed to be possessed of magic power, and that any baptized person whose eyes had been anointed with the green juice of its inner bark could recognize witches anywhere. Owing to these magic properties, it was often planted near dwellings to keep away evil spirits. By making a magic circle and standing within it with elder-berries gathered on St. John's Night, the mystic fern-seed could be secured which possessed the strength of forty men and enabled one to walk invisible. This was one of the trees suspected as having furnished wood for the Cross; and to this day the English country people believe themselves safe from lightning when standing under an elder, because lightning never strikes the tree of which the Cross was made.

COULTER'S SNAPDRAGON.

_Antirrhinum Coulterianum_, Benth. Figwort Family.

_Stems._--Two to four feet high; smooth below. _Leaves._--Linear to oval; distant. Tendril-shoots long and slender, produced mostly below the flowers. _Flowers._--White or violet; in densely crowded villous-pubescent spikes, two to ten inches long. (Otherwise as _A. vagans_.) _Hab._--Santa Barbara to San Diego.

The flowers of this pretty snapdragon are usually white, and the lower lip, with its great palate often dotted with dark color, takes up the major part of the blossom. They are sometimes violet, however, when they much resemble the flowers of the toad-flax, but are without their long spur.

_A. Orcuttianum_, Gray, is a similar species, but more slender, with fewer and smaller flowers, whose lower lip is not much larger than the upper, and whose flower-spikes are disposed to have the tortile branchlets in their midst. This is found near San Diego and southward.

HELIOTROPE.

_Heliotropium Curassavicum_, L. Borage Family.

Diffusely spreading; six to twelve inches high. _Leaves._--Alternate; sessile; obovate to linear; an inch or two long; succulent; glaucous. _Flowers._--Usually white, sometimes lavender; in dense, usually two-forked spikes. _Calyx._--Five-parted. _Corolla._--Salver-form; border five-lobed, with plaited sinuses; three lines across. _Stamens._--Five. Anthers sessile. _Ovary._--Of four seedlike nutlets. Stigma umbrella-like. _Hab._--Widely distributed.

This, the only species of true heliotrope common within our borders, is widely distributed over the world. It affects the sand of the seashore or saline soils of the interior. It is in no way an attractive plant, as compared with our garden heliotrope, as its flowers have a washed-out look and are not at all fragrant, while its pale stems and foliage lack color and character.

Its leaves, which contain a mucilaginous juice, are dried and reduced to powder by the Spanish-Californians, who esteem them very highly as a cure for the wounds of men and animals. They blow the dry powder into the wound.

HOREHOUND.

_Marrubium vulgare_, Linn. Mint Family.

The horehound has been introduced from Europe at various points along our Coast, but it is now so abundant as to seem like an indigenous plant. It has many white-woolly, square stems, and roundish, wrinkly opposite leaves, covered beneath with matted, white-woolly hairs. Its small, white, bilabiate flowers are crowded in the axils of the upper leaves so densely as to appear like whorls. It may be known from the other members of the Mint family by its campanulate calyx with ten strong, recurved teeth.

This has long been used in medicine as a tonic, and is especially esteemed by our Spanish-Californians as a remedy for colds and lung troubles.

WHITE EVENING PRIMROSE.

_OEnothera Californica_, Watson. Evening-Primrose Family.

Hoary pubescent, and more or less villous. _Stems._--A foot or so high. _Leaves._--Oblanceolate or lanceolate; sinuately toothed or irregularly pinnatifid; two to four inches long. _Flowers._--White; turning to rose-color; two inches across. _Ovary and Calyx-tube._--Over three inches long. _Calyx-lobes._--One inch long; separate at the tips. (See _OEnothera_ for flower-structure.) _Hab._--Central and Southern California; especially about the San Bernardino region; not plentiful.

Perhaps the most beautiful of all our evening primroses is this charming white species. Late in the afternoon the handsome silvery foliage begins to show the great white, opening moons of the fragile blossoms. Their silken texture, delicate fragrance, and chaste look make them paramount among blossoms.

It is a most interesting sight to watch the opening of one of the nodding silvery buds. I sat down by one which had already uplifted its head. The calyx-lobes had just commenced to part in the center, showing the white, silken corolla tightly rolled within. It grew larger from moment to moment, when suddenly the calyx-lobes parted with a jerk, and the petals, freed from their bondage, quickly spread wider and wider, as though some spirit within were forcing its way out, while one after another the calyx-lobes were turned downward with a quick, decisive movement. It was a wonderful exhibition of the power of motion in plants. I could now look within and see a magical tangle of yellow anthers delicately draped with cobwebby ropes of pollen.