Part 8

_Rhamnus Californica_, Esch. Buckthorn Family.

_Shrubs._--Four to eighteen feet high. _Leaves._--Alternate; elliptic to oblong; denticulate or entire; leathery; one to four inches long; six to eighteen lines wide. _Flowers._--Clustered; greenish white; small. _Calyx._--Five-toothed. _Petals._--Five; minute; on the sinuses of the calyx; each clasping a stamen. _Ovary._--Two- to four-celled. Style short. _Fruit._--Berry-like; black; four to six lines long; containing two or three nutlets, like coffee-beans. _Hab._--Throughout California.

Long before the advent of the Spanish, the medicinal virtues of this shrub were known to the Indians, who used it as a remedy for rheumatism and, according to Dr. Bard, to correct the effects of an acorn diet. The Mission Fathers afterward came to appreciate its worth so highly that they bestowed upon it the name _Cascara sagrada_, or the "sacred bark." Since those early days the fame of it has spread the world around. No more valuable laxative is known to the medical world to-day, and every year great quantities of it are exported from our shores. Though the shrub is found as far south as San Diego, the bark is not gathered in any quantity south of Monterey, as it becomes too thin southward. The shrub goes under a variety of names, according to the locality in which it is found.

In Monterey County it is known as "yellow-boy" or "yellow-root," and in Sonoma County it becomes "pigeon-berry," because the berry is a favorite food of the wild pigeons, and lends to their flesh a bitter taste.

Some years ago quite an excitement prevailed in the State when some visionary persons believed they had found a perfect substitute for coffee in the seeds of this shrub. To be sure, they do somewhat resemble the coffee-bean in form, but the resemblance goes no further; for upon a careful analysis they revealed none of the qualities of coffee, nor upon roasting did they exhale its aroma. After much discussion of the matter and the laying out in imagination of extensive, natural coffee-plantations upon our wild hill-slopes, these hopeful people were destined to see their project fall in ruins.

This shrub is very variable, according to the locality where it grows. Under shade, the leaves become herbaceous and ample, and as we go northward that becomes the prevailing type, and is then called _R. Purshiana_, DC. It is then often very large, having a trunk the size of a man's body. In Oregon it is known as "chittemwood" and "bitter bark," and also as "wahoo" and "bear-wood." The _var. tomentella_, Brew. and Wats., is densely white-tomentose, especially on the under surfaces of the leaves.

EVERLASTING FLOWER. CUDWEED. LADY'S TOBACCO.

_Gnaphalium decurrens_, Ives. Composite Family

Viscid-glandular under the loose hairs. _Flower-heads._--In densely crowded, flattish clusters. _Involucre._--Campanulate; of very numerous, scarious, yellowish-white, oval scales. (Otherwise similar to _Anaphalis Margaritacea_.) _Hab._--From San Diego through Oregon.

The common everlasting flower, or cudweed, is plentiful upon our dry hills, blooming in early summer, where its white clusters are conspicuous objects amid the drying vegetation. In our rural districts it is believed that sleeping upon a pillow made of these flowers will cure catarrhal affections.

_G. Sprengelii_, Hook. and Arn., may be known from the above by its densely gray, woolly herbage, which is not glandular-viscid. It is also common throughout the State.

The beautiful edelweiss of the Alps is a species of _Gnaphalium_, _G. leontopodium_.

CALIFORNIAN BUCKEYE. CALIFORNIAN HORSE-CHESTNUT.

_AEsculus Californica_, Nutt. Maple or Soapberry Family.

Shrubs or trees ten to forty feet high. _Leaves._--Opposite; petioled; with five palmate, stalked leaflets. _Leaflets._--Oblong; acute; three to five inches long; serrulate. _Flowers._--White; in a thyrse a foot long; many of them imperfect. _Calyx._--Tubular; two-lobed. _Petals._--Four or five; six lines or more long; unequal. _Stamens._--Five to seven; exserted. Anthers buff. _Ovary._--Three-celled. _Nuts._--One to three inches in diameter; usually one in the pod. _Hab._--Coast Ranges of Middle California; also the Sierra foothills.

Our Californian buckeye is closely allied to the horse-chestnuts and buckeyes of the eastern half of the continent. It is usually found upon stream-banks or the side-walls of cañons, and reaches its greatest perfection in the valleys of our central Coast Ranges. It usually branches low into a number of clean, round, light-gray limbs, which widen out into a broad, dense, rounded head. Its leaves are fully developed before the flowers appear. When in full bloom, in May, it is considered one of the most beautiful of all our American species. Its long, white flower-spikes, sprinkled rather regularly over the green mound of foliage, are very suggestive of a neat calico print. Early to come, the leaves are as early to depart, and by midsummer the beautiful skeleton is often bare, its interlacing twigs making a delicate network against the deep azure of the sky.

Though lavish in its production of flowers, usually but one or two of the large cluster succeed in maturing fruit. By October and November the leathery pods begin to yield up their big golden-brown nuts, which are great favorites among the squirrels. The Indians are said to resort to these nuts in times of famine. Before using them, they roast them a day or two in the ground, to extract the poison.

The inner wood of the root, after being kiln-cured for several weeks, becomes very valuable to the cabinet-maker. It is then of an exquisite mottled green, and when highly polished can hardly be distinguished from a fine piece of onyx.

PUSSY'S-PAWS.

_Spraguea umbellata_, Torr. Purslane Family.

_Radical-leaves._--Spatulate or oblanceolate; six lines to four inches long. _Stem-leaves._--Similar, but smaller, often reduced to a few bracts. _Scapes._--Several; two to twelve inches high. _Flowers._--In dense spikes. _Sepals._--Two; orbicular; thin; papery; two to four lines across; whitish; equaling the petals. _Petals._--Four; rose-color. _Stamens._--Three. _Ovary._--One-celled. Style bifid. _Hab._--The Sierras, from the Yosemite to British Columbia.

Pussy's-paws is a very plentiful plant in the Sierras, usually growing upon dry, rocky soil. It varies much in aspect, sometimes sending up a stout, erect flower-scape, and again growing low and matlike with its prostrate flower-stems radiating from the center. It blooms from early summer onward, often almost covering the ground with its blossoms. The flower-clusters grow in a bunch, much like the pink cushions on pussy's feet, whence the pretty common name.

SPANISH BAYONET. OUR LORD'S CANDLE.

_Yucca Whipplei_, Torr. Lily Family.

Without a trunk. _Leaves._--All radical in a bristling hemisphere; sword-like. _Flower-panicles._--Distaff-shaped; three or more feet long; at the summit of a leafless bracteate scape, ten or fifteen feet high. _Perianth._--Rotately spreading; waxen-white (sometimes rich purple), often green- or purple-nerved. _Filaments._--Clavate; pure white. Anthers transverse; yellow. Style very thick; three-angled. Stigma stalked; green; covered with tiny prominences. _Fruit._--A dry capsule. (Structure otherwise as in _Y. Mohavensis_.) _Hab._--Monterey to San Diego and eastward.

In spring and early summer the chaparral-covered hillsides of Southern California present a wonderful appearance when hundreds of these Spanish bayonets are in bloom. From day to day the waxen tapers on the distant slopes increase in height as the white bells climb the slender shafts. At length each cluster reaches its perfection, and becomes a solid distaff of sometimes two--yes, even six--thousand of the waxen blossoms!

A friend writing of them, once said: "Nearly every poetaster in the country has sung the praises of the yellow poppies and the sweet little _Nemophilas_, but not one, so far as I know, has ever written a stanza to these grand white soldiers and their hundred swords." There is, indeed, something glorious and warlike about them, as they marshal themselves to the defense of our hillsides.

This surpasses all known species in the height and beauty of its flower-panicles; but, once the season of flowering and fruiting has been consummated, its life mission is fulfilled, and the plant dies. The dead stalks remain standing sometimes for years upon the mountain-sides.

The seeds of this species, as well as those of the tree-yucca, are made into flour by the Indians; and from the leaves they obtain a soft, white fiber, which they use in making the linings of the coarse saddle-blankets they weave from _Yucca Mohavensis_. The undeveloped flowering shoots they consider a great delicacy, either raw or prepared as mescal. They gather great numbers of the plants when just at the right stage, and strip off the leaves, leaving round masses. These they prepare after the manner of a clam-bake, and when the pile is pulled to pieces and the mescal is taken out, it has a faint resemblance to a baked sweet apple, and is of about the same consistency. The whole mass is a mixture of sweet, soft pulp and coarse white fibers much like manilla rope-yarn.

RUBY LILY. CHAPARRAL LILY. REDWOOD LILY.

_Lilium rubescens_, Wats. Lily Family.

_Hab._--The Coast Ranges, from Marin County to Humboldt County.

This is the most charming of all our Californian lilies, even surpassing in loveliness the beautiful Washington lily; and it is said to be the most fragrant of any in the world. It resembles the Washington lily; but its flowers are fuller in form, with wider petals and shorter tube, and it has a smaller bulb. It sends up a noble shaft, sometimes seven feet high, with many scattered whorls of undulate leaves, and often bears at the summit as many as twenty-five of the beautiful flowers. These are at first pure white, dotted with purple, but they soon take on a metallic luster and begin to turn to a delicate pink, which gradually deepens into a ruby purple. Mr. Purdy mentions having seen a plant with a stalk nine feet high, bearing thirty-six flowers.

The favorite haunts of this lily are high and inaccessible ridges, among the chaparral, or under the live-oak or redwood. Comparatively few people know of its existence, though living within a few miles of it, because they rarely ever visit these out-of-the-way fastnesses of nature.

Mr. Burroughs has somewhere said: "Genius is a specialty; it does not grow in every soil, it skips the many and touches the few; and the gift of perfume to a flower is a special grace, like genius or like beauty, and never becomes common or cheap." Certainly these blossoms have been richly endowed with this charming gift, and their delicious fragrance wafted by the wind often betrays their presence upon a hillside when unsuspected before, so that one skilled in woodcraft can often trace them by it.

THISTLE-POPPY. CHICALOTE.

_Argemone platyceras_, Link and Otto. Poppy Family.

_Stems._--One to two and one half feet high; hispid throughout, or armed with rigid bristles or prickles. Sap yellow. _Leaves._--Thistle-like; three to six inches long. _Flowers._--White; two to four inches in diameter. _Sepals._--Three; spinosely beaked. _Petals._--Four to six. _Stamens._--Numerous. Filaments slender. _Ovary._--Oblong; one-celled. Stigma three- or four-lobed. Capsule very prickly. _Hab._--Dry hillsides from Central California southward.

The thistle-poppy would be considered in any other country a surpassingly beautiful flower, with its large diaphanous white petals and its thistly gray-green foliage, but in California it must yield precedence to the Matilija poppy. It resembles the latter very closely in its flower, and is often mistaken for it. It may be known by its yellow juice, its prickly foliage, and its very prickly capsules. I believe the flowers are somewhat more cup-shaped than those of _Romneya_.

It affects dry hill-slopes and valleys, often otherwise barren, where it grows luxuriantly, and sometimes attains a height of six feet, being in full bloom in May. There, where one is unprepared for such a sight, it becomes an object of startling beauty.

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_Malacothrix saxatilis_, Torr. and Gray. Composite Family.

_Stems._--Stout; a foot or two high; woody. _Leaves._--Lanceolate to spatulate; one or two inches long; entire or pinnatifid; somewhat succulent. _Flower-heads._--Terminating the paniculate branches; large; two inches or so across; white, changing to rose or lilac; of ray-flowers only. _Involucre._--Campanulate or hemispherical; six lines high, with many imbricated scales passing downward into loose, awl-shaped bracts. _Hab._--The Coast, from Santa Barbara southward.

This beautiful plant is a dweller upon the ocean cliffs, and may be seen in abundance from the car-windows just before the train reaches Santa Barbara going north. The stems are woody and very leafy, and the plants are usually covered all over the top with the showy flower-heads.

_M. tenuifolia_, Torr. and Gray, is a very tall, slender, sparsely leafy plant with fragile, airy white flowers. This is common along the dusty roadsides of the south in early summer.

SALAL. WINTERGREEN.

_Gaultheria Shallon_, Pursh. Heath Family.

Shrubby, and one to three or more feet high or prostrate. _Leaves._--Alternate; short-petioled; ovate to elliptical; pointed; two to four inches long; leathery; bristle-toothed when young; evergreen. _Flowers._--Manzanita-like; slenderer; glandular-viscid; white or pinkish. _Ovary._--Five-celled. Style single. _Fruit._--Black; berry-like; aromatic; edible. (Otherwise like _Arctostaphylos Manzanita_.) _Hab._--Coast woods, from Santa Barbara County to British Columbia.

The floor of the redwood forest in our northern coast counties is often carpeted with this little undershrub, while in other places one can wade waist-deep in it. It grows much larger north of us, and upon Vancouver Island it forms dense, impenetrable thickets. Its dark-purple berries have a very agreeable flavor, and form an important article of diet among the Oregon Indians, who call them "salal."

CALIFORNIAN SPIKENARD.

_Aralia Californica_, Wats. Ginseng Family.

_Root._--Thick; aromatic. _Stems._--Eight to ten feet high. _Leaves._--Bipinnate; or the upper pinnate, with one or two pairs of leaflets. _Leaflets._--Cordate-ovate; four to eight inches long; serrate. _Flowers._--White; two lines long; in globular umbels, arranged in loose panicles a foot or two long. Pedicels four to six lines long. _Calyx._--Five-toothed or entire. _Petals and Stamens._--Five. _Ovary._--Two- to five-celled. Styles united to the middle. _Fruit._--A purple berry. _Hab._--Widely distributed; on stream-banks.

In moist, cool ravines, where the sun only slants athwart the branches and a certain dankness always lingers, the Californian spikenard scents the air with its peculiar odor. It closely resembles _A. racemosa_ of the Eastern States, but it is a larger, coarser plant in every way. It throws up its tall stems with a fine confidence that there will be ample space for its large leaves to spread themselves uncrowded. Its feathery panicles of white flowers are followed by clusters of small purple berries, and are rather more delicate than we should expect from so large a plant.

YERBA MANSA.

_Anemopsis Californica_, Hook. Yerba Mansa Family.

Rootstock creeping. _Radical-leaves._--Long-petioled; elliptic oblong; two to ten inches long. _Stems._--Six inches to two feet high. _Flowers._--Without sepals and petals, sunk in a conical spike; six to eighteen lines long; a small white bract under each flower. _Spikes._--Subtended by from five to eight white petal-like bracts, six to fifteen lines long. _Stamens._--Three to eight. _Ovary._--Apparently one-celled. Stigmas one to five. _Hab._--Southern to Central California.

Just as the fervid glow of the sun is beginning to transform the green of our southern hill-slopes to soft browns, the still vividly green lowland meadows suddenly bring forth myriads of white stars, which in their green setting become grateful resting-points for the eye. These are the blossoms of the famous _Yerba Mansa_ of the Spanish-Californians. Among these people the plant is an infallible remedy for many disorders, and so highly do they prize it, that they often travel or send long distances for it.

The aromatic root, which has a strong, peppery taste, is very astringent, and when made into a tea or a powder, is applied with excellent results to cuts and sores. The tea is also taken as a blood-purifier; and the plant, in the form of a wash or poultice, is used for rheumatism, while the wilted leaves are said to reduce swellings. In the medical world it is beginning to be used in diseases of the mucous membrane.

SHEPHERD'S PURSE.

_Capsella Bursa-pastoris_, Medic. Mustard Family.

Among our commonest and most harmless weeds is the shepherd's purse, which has been introduced from Europe in the past. It may be easily recognized by its tiny white cruciferous flowers and its shapely little triangular, flat pods, which have a peppery taste. It is used medicinally, and valued as a remedy for many different maladies. In Europe, a common name for the plant is "mother's heart," and Mr. Johnston says that children play a sort of game with the seed-pouch. "They hold it out to their companions, inviting them to 'take a haud o' that.' It immediately cracks, and then follows a triumphant shout, 'You've broken your mother's heart!'"

Equally common is the _Lepidium_, or pepper-grass, the small round, flat pods of which also have a peppery taste. Both of these belong to the great Mustard family.

MARIPOSA TULIP.

_Calochortus venustus_, Benth. (and varieties). Lily Family.

_Stems._--A foot or two high; branching. _Leaves._--Narrow; grasslike; channeled; glaucous; decumbent. _Flowers._--Erect; cup-shaped; white, lilac, pink, claret, magenta, purple, or rarely light yellow; of uniform color or shaded; plain or variously oculated, stained, or blotched. _Petals._--One or two inches long; slightly hairy below. _Gland._--Large; roundish; densely hairy. _Capsule._--Lanceolate; four or five lines broad. (See _Calochortus_.) _Hab._--Dry sandy soil, in the Coast Ranges and Sierra foothills, from Mendocino County to Los Angeles.

I once emerged from the dense chaparral of a steep hillside upon a grassy slope, where myriads of these lovely flowers tossed their delicate cups upon the breeze. As I passed from flower to flower, I noticed many insect guests regaling themselves upon the nectar. Bees and flies jostled one another and crawled amid the hairs below, and beautifully mottled butterflies hovered over them.

As originally described, this flower was white or pale lilac, with a more or less conspicuous, usually reddish, stain, or blotch, near the top, a brownish spot bordered with yellow in the center, and a brownish striate base. But it varies so widely from this type, in both color and spots, that neither is a reliable character from which to determine the species. Some of the oculated forms of _C. luteus_ are so similar that they are readily confused with this, but a careful examination of the gland and the form of the capsule, together with the character of the soil in which the plants grow, will identify the species.

COMMON NIGHTSHADE.

_Solanum nigrum_, L. Nightshade Family.

_Hab._--Along streams near the coast.

This may be easily distinguished from _S. Xanti_ by its very small white flowers, whose corollas are but three or four lines across, and much more deeply and pointedly lobed, the lobes having a tendency to turn backward as the flowers grow older; also by its thinner, duller leaves, and much smaller, black berries, the size of peas.

It is considered a violent narcotic poison, both berries and leaves having caused death when eaten. It is used in the medical world, in the form of a tincture for various maladies, and it is said that in Bohemia the blossoming plant is hung over the cradles of infants to induce sweet slumber; while in Dalmatia the root is fried in butter and eaten to produce sleep, and is also used as remedy for hydrophobia.

_Solanum Douglasii_, Dunal, is a similar species, with larger flowers, which are usually white, though sometimes light blue.

BUTTERFLY TULIP.

_Calochortus luteus, var. oculatus_, Wats. Lily Family.

_Hab._--Sierras and Coast Ranges, from Fresno County to Oregon.

Of all our lovely Mariposa tulips, this charming form is perhaps the most like the insect for which it is named. Its creamy or purplish flowers have an exquisitely tinted dark-maroon eye, surrounded by yellow, and it is often streaked in marvelous imitation of the insect's wing. It was doubtless this form Miss Coolbrith had in mind when she wrote the beautiful lines below:

"Insect or blossom? Fragile, fairy thing, Poised upon slender tip and quivering To flight! a flower of the fields of air; A jeweled moth, a butterfly with rare And tender tints upon his downy wing A moment resting in our happy sight; A flower held captive by a thread so slight Its petal-wings of broidered gossamer Are, light as the wind, with every wind astir, Wafting sweet odor, faint and exquisite. O dainty nursling of the field and sky! What fairer thing looks up to heaven's blue, And drinks the noontide sun, the dawning's dew? Thou winged bloom! thou blossom butterfly!"

WESTERN BOYKINIA.

_Boykinia occidentalis_, Torr. and Gray. Saxifrage Family.

_Stems._--Slender; a foot or two high. _Leaves._--Round-reniform; palmately three- to seven-lobed; one to three inches broad; the lobes coarsely toothed. _Flowers._--In long-peduncled, loose panicles; white; four lines across; parts in fives. _Calyx._--With acute teeth. _Petals._--On the sinuses of the calyx. _Stamens._--On the calyx, opposite its teeth. Filaments short. _Ovary._--With its two cells attenuate into the slender styles. _Hab._--Coast Ranges, from Santa Barbara to Washington.

The tufted leaves, and exquisitely delicate saxifrage-like clusters of the _Boykinia_, fringe our streams in early summer.

SOAP-PLANT. AMOLE.

_Chlorogalum pomeridianum_, Kunth. Lily Family.

_Bulb._--One to four inches in diameter; densely brown-fibrous. _Leaves._--Six to eighteen inches long. _Scape._--One to five feet high; bearing a loosely spreading panicle. _Perianth._--White; of six spreading, recurved segments nine lines long. _Stamens._--Six; shorter than the segments. _Ovary._--Three-celled. Style filiform. Stigma three-lobed. _Hab._--Widely distributed.

The leaves of the soap-plant have been with us all the spring, increasing in length as the season has advanced. You can easily recognize them, as they resemble a broad, wavy-margined grass, usually lying flat upon the ground, with some of the ragged brown fibres of the bulb showing aboveground, like the fragment of an old manilla mat.

In early summer, from their midst begins to shoot a slender stalk. When the process of its growth is complete, it stands from two to five feet high, with slender, widespreading branches and rather sparsely scattered flowers.