Orange Mariposa Tulip—Calochortus Kennedyi.

FIELD BOOK OF
WESTERN
WILD FLOWERS

By MARGARET ARMSTRONG

IN COLLABORATION WITH

J. J. THORNBER, A.M.

PROFESSOR OF BOTANY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA, AND BOTANIST OF THE ARIZONA AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENT STATION AT TUCSON

WITH FIVE HUNDRED ILLUSTRATIONS IN BLACK AND WHITE, AND FORTY-EIGHT PLATES IN COLOR DRAWN FROM NATURE BY THE AUTHOR

C. P. PUTNAM'S SONS
The Knickerbocker Press
NEW YORK AND LONDON
1915

Copyright, 1915
by
MARGARET ARMSTRONG

The Knickerbocker Press, New York

PREFACE.

In this little book a very large number of the commoner wild flowers growing in the United States, west of the Rocky Mountains, are pictured and described. It is the first attempt to supply a popular field book for the whole West. The field is vast, including within its limits all sorts of climate and soil, producing thousands of flowers, infinite in variety and wonderful in beauty, their environment often as different as that of Heine's Pine and Palm. In such strange homes as the Grand Canyon and the Petrified Forest of Arizona, or the deserts of Utah and southern California, we find the oddest desert plants, forced to curious expedients in order to sustain life amidst almost perpetual heat and drought, but often displaying blossoms of such brilliance and delicacy that they might well be envied by their more fortunate sisters, flourishing beside shady waterfalls, in a "happy valley" like Yosemite, or a splendid mountain garden, such as spreads in many-colored parterres of bloom around the feet of Mt. Rainier. On the wind-swept plains hundreds of flowers are to be found; many kinds of hardy plants brighten the salty margins of the sea cliffs, or bloom at the edge of the snow on rocky mountain peaks, while quantities of humble, everyday flowers border our country roadsides or tint the hills and meadows with lavish color.

The field included the States of Washington, Oregon, California, Idaho, Nevada, Utah, and Arizona and to designate this whole field the term West is used in this book. The term Northwest designates Washington, Oregon, northern Idaho, and northern California, and the term Southwest covers southern California and Arizona. The flowers found only in the Rocky Mountains are not included, and it may be noted here that exceedingly few of the western flowers cross the Rockies and are found in the East.

This is the only fully illustrated book of western flowers, except Miss Parsons's charming book, which is for California only. The drawings have all been made from life. Allowance must be made for differences in appearance, owing to locality, and the text should be consulted for the size, as, on so small a page, some of the plants must be drawn smaller than others.

Almost all technical botanical terms have been translated into ordinary English, as this book is intended primarily for the general public, but as a large number of the plants given have never before been illustrated, or even described, except in somewhat inaccessible or technical publications, it is hoped that the scientist also may find the contents both interesting and useful.

The nomenclature used, with few exceptions, is that of the American Code. Where these names differ greatly from those in common usage the latter are given as synonyms in brackets, making the book more useful to all readers. The botanical names are marked with an accent. Two accents are used, the grave (`) to indicate the long English sound of the vowel, such as the "i" in "violet," and the acute (´) to show the short sound, such as the "i" in "lily."

Professor J. J. Thornber, of the University of Arizona, is responsible for the botanical accuracy of the text and his knowledge and patient skill have made the book possible.

Thanks are due for most valuable assistance in the determination of a very large number of specimens to Miss Alice Eastwood, of the California Academy of Sciences. Also to Dr. W. L. Jepson of the University of California; Professor A. O. Garrett, of Salt Lake City; Professor A. R. Sweetser, of the University of Oregon; Mr. S. B. Parish, of San Bernardino, Cal.; Mrs. Henshaw, of Vancouver, B. C.; Dr. A. Davidson, of Los Angeles; and Mr. Marcus E. Jones, of Salt Lake City. Also for advice and assistance to Dr. N. L. Britton, and Dr. H. M. Richards of New York; to Dr. Livingston Farrand, of Colorado; Mr. C. R. Orcutt, of San Diego; Mr. Carl Purdy, of Ukiah, Cal.; Professor Flett, of Mt. Rainier National Park; Miss Winona Bailey, of Seattle; Professor J. H. Paul, of Salt Lake City; and many other kind friends.

The arrangement is that originated by Mr. Schuyler Mathews, in his Field Book of American Wild Flowers, which has been found very popular in the East, but, in this book, most of the genera, as well as the species, have been very briefly described.

Margaret Armstrong.

New York,
January 1, 1915.

CONTENTS.

COLORED ILLUSTRATIONS.

TECHNICAL TERMS.

Corolla. The flower-cup composed of one or more divisions called petals.

Petal. One of the divisions of the corolla.

Calyx. A flower-envelope, usually green, formed of several divisions called sepals, protecting the bud.

Sepal. One of the divisions of the calyx.

Anther. The pollen-bearing organ, usually yellow.

Filament. The stalk-like support of the anther.

Stamen. Anther and filament combined.

Ovary. The seed-bearing organ.

Ovary inferior. With the flower-parts growing from above the ovary.

Ovary superior. With the flower-parts growing from below the ovary.

Placenta. That particular portion of the ovary wall to which the ovules are attached.

Ovule. The body in the ovary which becomes a seed.

Style. The stalk-like projection proceeding from the ovary and terminated by the stigma.

Stigma. The generally sticky and sometimes branching termination of the pistil through which pollination takes place.

Pistil. Ovary, style, and stigma combined.

Regular Flower. Generally symmetrical and uniform in the number of its parts.

Perfect Flower. A flower complete in all the common parts.

Staminate. With stamens and without pistils.

Pistillate. With pistils and without stamens.

Polygamous. Pistillate, staminate, and perfect flowers, on the same or on different plants.

Claw. The narrow or stalk-like base of some petals.

Pedicel. The stalk of a flower in a cluster.

Raceme. A flower-cluster in which the flowers are borne along the flower-stalk on pedicels of nearly equal length.

Spike. A flower-cluster in which the flowers have no pedicels and are arranged more or less closely along the flower-stalk.

Bracts. Small scalelike formations.

Involucre. A circle of bracts below a flower-cluster.

Stipule. Small often leaflike formations, confined to the base of the leaf.

Capsule. A dry seed-vessel, composed of more than one part and splitting open.

Akene. A small dry one-seeded fruit, not splitting open.

A KEY TO THE FAMILIES.

FIELD BOOK
OF
WESTERN WILD FLOWERS

WATER-PLANTAIN FAMILY. Alismaceae.

A rather small family, widely distributed, growing in fresh-water swamps and streams. The leaves are all from the root, with long sheathing leaf-stalks, and the flowers are regular and perfect, or with only pistils or only stamens; the sepals three; the petals three; the stamens six or more; the ovaries numerous, superior, developing into dry, one-seeded nutlets.

There are a good many kinds of Sagittaria, with fibrous roots and milky juice; the leaves are usually arrow-shaped; the lower flowers usually pistillate and the upper ones usually staminate; the stamens are numerous and the numerous ovaries are closely crowded and form roundish heads. The name is from the Latin for "arrow," referring to the shape of the leaves.

Arrowhead
Sagittària latifòlia
White
Summer
North America

An attractive and very decorative plant, with stout, smooth, hollow flower-stems, from eight inches to four feet tall, with very handsome, smooth, olive-green leaves and papery bracts. The flowers are about an inch across, with delicately crumpled, white petals and yellow anthers, forming a bright golden center, and the plants look very pretty standing along the edges of ponds. The leaves are exceedingly variable both in size and shape. This is found throughout North America. The tubers are edible and hence the plant is often called Tule Potato, and they are much eaten by the Chinese in California. The Indian name is Wapato.

Arrowhead—Sagittaria latifolia.

LILY FAMILY. Liliaceae.

A wonderfully beautiful family, large and widely distributed, mostly perennial herbs, growing from bulbs or root-stocks, with perfect, regular, symmetrical flowers and toothless leaves. The flower-cup almost always has six divisions, the outer often called sepals and the inner petals. The six stamens are opposite the divisions and sometimes three of them are without anthers. The styles or stigmas are three and the ovary is superior, developing into a three-celled capsule or berry, containing few or many seeds.

There are several kinds of Anthericum, rather small, lily-like plants, with grasslike leaves, springing from the base and surrounded by the fibrous remnants of older leaves. The slender stems are leafless, or have one, very small, dry leaf; the roots thick and fleshy-fibrous; the flowers yellow, on pedicels jointed near the middle; the style long and slender; the pod oblong, containing several flattened, angular seeds in each cell. They are common in rocky soil, at altitudes of six thousand to nine thousand feet, from western Texas to Arizona.

Amber Lily
Anthéricum Tórreyi
Yellow
Summer
Arizona

A beautiful little plant, with delicate flowers, unusual and pretty in coloring. It grows from eight to fifteen inches tall and has a slender, pale-green stem, springing from a clump of graceful, pale bluish-green, grasslike leaves. The flowers are about three quarters of an inch long, pale orange or corn-color, with a narrow stripe on each division; the pistil green, with an orange stigma; the anthers yellow. The flowers fade almost as soon as they bloom. This grows in open woods.

Amber Lily—Anthericum Torreyi.

There are several kinds of Zygadene, natives of North America and Siberia. They mostly have coated bulbs, resembling onions, and white or greenish flowers, in clusters, the leaves long, smooth, folded lengthwise and springing mostly from the root. The flowers are perfect or polygamous, the six divisions alike, with one or two, greenish, glandular spots at the base of each; the styles three, distinct; the fruit a three-lobed capsule, with several or many seeds in each compartment. The name is from the Greek for "yoke" and "gland," because some kinds have a couple of glands on each division of the flower.

Poison Sego
Zygadènus paniculàtus
Cream-white
Spring, summer
Utah, Nev., Idaho

A handsome, rather stout plant, about a foot tall, with bright light-green, smooth, graceful leaves sheathing the stem, which has a papery bract around its base. The flowers are in clusters varying in shape, sometimes growing in a long, loose raceme and sometimes in a closer, pointed cluster. The divisions of the rather small, cream-white flowers have short claws, with a yellow gland and a stamen at the base of each. The stamens are conspicuous, with swinging, yellow, shield-shaped anthers, and are at first longer than the three styles, which gradually lengthen and, together with the stamens, give a delicate, feathery appearance to the whole flower cluster. This grows on dry hillsides and in meadows. The bulb is very poisonous.

Poison Sego—Zygadenus paniculatus.

Zygadene
Zygadènus élegans
White
Summer
U. S.

A handsome graceful plant, with one or more stiff stems, from six inches to three feet tall, springing from a large clump of rather stiff, bluish-green leaves, covered with a pale "bloom," and bearing fine clusters of cream-white flowers, less than an inch across, their divisions united below and adhering to the base of the ovary and each with a sticky, bright-green, heart-shaped gland. This grows in moist places in the mountains, across the continent.

Star Zygadene
Zygadènus Fremóntii
White
Spring, summer
California

Much like the last, but the foliage with less "bloom" and the flowers handsomer and rather larger. Their divisions are free from the ovary, only the inner divisions have claws, and the glands are greenish-yellow and toothed. This grows among bushes, on hillsides and sea-cliffs along the coast.

Death Camass
Zygadènus venenòsus
White
Spring
Wash., Oreg., Cal.

Not nearly so handsome as the two last, but a pretty plant, from one to two feet tall, with dull-green leaves, folded lengthwise, with rough edges. The cream-colored flowers are less than half an inch across, striped with green on the outside, their divisions free from the ovary and all with claws, with roundish, greenish-yellow glands, not toothed, and with long stamens. This grows in meadows and the bulb is very poisonous except to hogs, so it is often called Hog's Potato.

There are several kinds of Veratrum, natives of the north temperate zone; tall, perennial herbs, with thick, short, poisonous rootstocks; stems tall and leafy, more or less hairy; leaves broad, plaited, with conspicuous veins; flowers more or less downy, polygamous, whitish or greenish, in a cluster, their six, separate divisions colored alike, adhering to the base of the ovary, without glands, or nearly so, and without claws; stamens opposite the divisions, with heart-shaped anthers; styles three; capsule three-lobed, with several flat, broadly-winged seeds in each compartment. Veratrum is the ancient name for Hellebore.

Zygadene—Z. elegans.
Death Camass—Zygadenus venenosus.

False Hellebore
Veràtrum Califórnicum
Greenish-white
Spring
West

The leaves of this plant are its conspicuous feature. A few near the top are long and narrow, but most of them are boat-shaped, with heavy ribs, and from six to twelve inches long. They are bright yellowish-green and, although somewhat coarse, the general effect is distinctly handsome, as we see masses of them growing luxuriantly in rich, moist meadows and marshes in the mountains. When they first come up in the spring, the shoots are packed into green rosettes, in which the leaves are intricately folded, but they soon grow to a height of three to six feet. The flowers are beautiful, in fine contrast to the coarse foliage. They measure about half an inch across and are cream-white, streaked with green, and form a fine cluster about a foot long. The flowers are far prettier and the plants handsomer than their eastern relations and they flourish at an altitude of six to nine thousand feet. The plants are supposed to be poisonous to cattle, but in a recent bulletin of the Agricultural Experiment Station of the State of Washington, it is reported as being a popular food with horses and sheep, particularly the latter, which eat it greedily and without ill effects.

There are several kinds of Hastingsia, perennials, with bulbs or rootstocks; the stamens on the base of the perianth, with swinging anthers; the ovary with a very short stalk and short style.

Reed-lily
Hastíngsia álba (Schoenolirion)
White
Summer
Oreg., Cal., Nev.

An attractive marsh plant, with a smooth, stiff, bluish stem, over three feet tall, springing from a cluster of long, narrow, sword-like leaves. The slightly sweet-scented flowers are white, about half an inch across, forming a long, graceful, fuzzy wand of bloom, which has a pretty silvery effect and looks interesting at a distance, but is not very striking close by, as the flowers are too colorless. The seeds are black and shiny.

False Hellebore—Veratrum Californicum.
Reed Lily—Hastingsia alba.

Amole Soap Plant
Chlorógalum pomeridiànum
Silvery-white
Summer
California

There are several kinds of Chlorogalum. This odd plant springs from a big bulb, which is covered with coarse brown fiber and often shows above the ground. The leaves are sometimes over two feet long, with rippled margins, look like very coarse grass, and usually spread out flat on the ground. The plants are conspicuous and look interesting and we wonder what sort of flower is to come from them. Then some day in late summer we find that a rather ugly, branching stalk, four or five feet tall, has shot up from the center of the tuft of leaves. The branches are covered with bluish-green buds, and we watch with interest for the bloom, but we may easily miss it, for the flowers are very short-lived and come out only for a little while in the afternoons. In the lowlands the flowers are rather scattered and straggling, but in Yosemite they are lovely, close by. Each flower is an inch or more across and looks like an airy little lily, with six spreading divisions, white, delicately veined with dull-blue, and they are clustered along the branches, towards the top of the stalk, and bloom in successive bunches, beginning at the bottom. When they commence to bloom, the tips of the petals remain caught together until the last minute, when suddenly they let go and spring apart and all at once the dull stalk, like Aaron's rod, is adorned with several delicate clusters of feathery silver flowers. The thread-like style is slightly three-cleft at the tip and the capsule has one or two blackish seeds in each cell. The bulbs form a lather in water and are used as a substitute for soap by the Indians and Spanish-Californians, and as food by the Pomo Indians, who cook them in great pits in the ground. Pomeridianum means "in the afternoon."

Soap Plant—Chlorogalum pomeridianum.

Wild Onions are easily recognized by their characteristic taste and odor. They mostly have coated bulbs; their leaves are long and narrow, from the base; the flower-stalk bears a roundish, bracted cluster of rather small, white, pink, or magenta flowers, on slender pedicels, their six divisions nearly alike and each with a stamen attached to its base. The bracts enclose the buds, before blooming, in a case and the capsule contains six, black, wrinkled seeds. There are numerous kinds, very widely distributed, not easily distinguished, some resembling Brodiaea, but the latter never smell of onion. Allium is the Latin for "garlic."

Pink Wild Onion
Állium acuminàtum
Pink
Spring, summer
Northwest

From four to ten inches high, with a few leaves. Before blooming, the flower cluster is enveloped in two papery bracts, forming a beautiful pink and white, iridescent case, the shape of a turnip, at the tip of the stalk. Later these bracts split apart and disclose a cluster of pretty flowers, usually very deep pink in color, the divisions each with a darker line on the outside, the anthers pale-yellow. This is very gay and attractive, often growing in patches on dry hillsides and fields. The flowers last a long time in water, gradually becoming paler in color and papery in texture. The bulb is marked with veins.

Wild Onion
Állium biscéptrum
Pink, white
Spring
Utah, Nev., Cal.

Six to ten inches tall, with two slightly thickish leaves, and usually two slender flower stalks, each bearing a graceful cluster of starry, white, pink or pinkish-purple flowers, each petal delicately striped with pinkish-brown, the anthers pink, the ovary green, with three, tiny, double crests. These flowers are exceedingly delicate and pretty, growing among rocks in shady canyons. The bulb is usually red-coated.

The flower cluster of Allium serràtum is much more compact than the last and the pink flowers change to deep purplish-pink as they fade, making a pretty, round, papery head, about an inch and a half across. Common on low hills in California.

Wild Onion—Allium acuminatum.

Wild Onions.
Allium bisceptrum.
Allium serratum.

There are many kinds of Brodiaea, among the prettiest western flowers. They have a small, solid bulb, coated with brownish fibers. The stem bears a bracted, roundish head of flowers at the top, the pedicels varying in length. Their leaves, all from the root, are grasslike and soon wither and the flowers dry up, become papery, and remain on the stalk, sometimes keeping form and color for some time. The stamens are in two sets and are attached to the flower-tube, their filaments often winged. Sometimes three of the stamens are without anthers and their filaments are broadened, so that they look like small petals alternating with the ordinary stamens.

Grass Nuts.
Blue Dicks.
Covena.
Brodiaèa capitàta
Blue, violet
Spring
California

All through the spring these lovely flowers grow abundantly all over the hills and fields of California. The slender stalks vary from a few inches to two feet tall. The flowers are usually purplish-blue, but vary from deep-violet to white and are rather translucent in texture. They measure over half an inch across and grow in a cluster of seven or eight flowers, with several membranous, purplish bracts at the base. There are six anthers. The three inner stamens are winged and form a crown in the throat of the flower-tube. These Brodiaeas last a long time in water and are great favorites everywhere. The little bulbs are edible and give the name of Grass Nuts. There are several other names, such as Cluster Lily and Hog-onion. The name Wild Hyacinth is poor, as it does not resemble a hyacinth in character. B. capitàta var. pauciflòra of Arizona is similar, except that the bracts are white. Covena is the Arizona name.

Ookow
Brodiaèa congésta
Blue, violet
Spring, summer
Wash., Oreg., Cal.

Much like the last, except that only three of the stamens have anthers and the stem is sometimes as much as five feet tall. This grows on open hills in the Coast Ranges.

Covena—Brodiaea capitata var. pauciflora.

Ookow—Brodiaea congesta.

Harvest Brodiaea
Brodiaèa grandiflòra (Hookera coronaria)
Blue
Summer
Cal., Oreg., Wash.

In early June, at the time of the hay harvest, these handsome flowers, which look like clusters of little blue lilies, begin to appear among the dried grass of the hillsides and in open places in the woods. They vary in height from a few inches to over a foot and the number of flowers in a cluster also varies very much. Sometimes there are as many as ten of the beautiful blossoms, an inch or more long, with pedicels unequal in length and from one to four inches long, in a large cluster at the top of the stalk, with several, whitish, papery bracts at the base of the cluster. The color of the flowers is usually a deep bright blue shading to violet and the six divisions grow paler toward the base and have a brown stripe on the outside; the buds are greenish, striped with brown. The stamens are translucent white, three ordinary stamens, with long erect anthers, alternating with three without anthers, the latter tongue-shaped and petal-like. The leaves, which are thickish and about the same length as the stalk, have withered away before the flowers bloom. This plant very much resembles Ithuriel's Spear, Triteleia laxa, but three of the stamens are without anthers and the ovary is not on a long stalk. It is the commonest kind around San Francisco. B. minor is much the same, but a smaller plant with fewer and smaller flowers. The three outer divisions are narrow, with pointed tips, and the inner blunt and broad, and the sterile stamens are notched and longer than the fertile ones. This grows on dry hills and plains in middle and southern California.

Brodiaea minor.
Harvest Brodiaea—B. grandiflora.

Twining Brodiaea
Brodiaèa volùbilis.
(Stropholirion Californicum)
Pink
Summer
California

This is a strange, rather grotesque-looking plant, with its slightly roughish, leafless, reddish stem contorted into curious curves, occasionally quite short but usually enormously long, sometimes as much as eight feet, and twining awkwardly in a snake-like way around and over the bushes in its neighborhood. There are sometimes a few long narrow leaves lying on the ground, but when the flower blooms they usually seem to have withered away. The flower-cluster is quite compact, sometimes six inches across, comprising from eighteen to twenty flowers, with several, large, pink, papery bracts. The flowers are rather pretty, dull pink outside but paler inside, the buds are deeper and more purplish pink, both of dry papery texture. The flowers are over half an inch across, their tubes and buds are six-angled, and they have three stamens with anthers and wings, alternating with three, notched, petal-like stamens, without anthers. In the spring the stem grows rapidly for several weeks and then the flower cluster begins to come out at the tip. If the stem is broken off the flower comes out just the same and the stem keeps on growing, even if it is brought into the house. These curious plants are found in the foothills of the Coast Ranges and the Sierra Nevada Mountains and may be seen in open sunny places along the stage route from Yosemite to Wawona. In the woods near Wawona I saw it twining around a very tall white larkspur and the combination was exceedingly pretty. The capsule is egg-shaped and pointed, the seeds black and angled.

Twining Brodiaea—Brodiaea volubilis.

There are four kinds of Bloomeria, all Californian, resembling Brodiaea, but the stamens unlike. They have a fibrous-coated, solid bulb, long narrow leaves, and a bracted cluster of many flowers, at the top of a tall flower-stalk. The flowers are yellow, with six, nearly equal, spreading divisions, the six stamens on the base of the divisions, with slender filaments, which with a microscope are seen to have a short, two-toothed, hairy appendage at base. These are united and form a little cup surrounding the base of the stamens. The style is club-shaped, with a three-lobed stigma. The roundish capsule, beaked with the style, contains several, angular, wrinkled seeds in each cell.

Golden Stars
Bloomèria aùrea
Yellow
Spring, summer
California

In late spring the meadows around Pasadena and other places in the Coast Range are bright with pretty clusters of Golden Stars. The plant is from six to eighteen inches tall, springing from a small bulb, covered with brown fibers, with a long, narrow, grasslike leaf, and a large flower-cluster, sometimes comprising as many as fifty blossoms, at the top of the stalk. The flowers, about an inch across, with pedicels from one and a half to two inches long, are orange-yellow, the spreading divisions each striped with two dark lines, and the anthers are bright green. This looks very much like Golden Brodiaea, but the latter has no cup at the base of the stamens. It grows in the southern part of California and is abundant wherever it is found. B. Clevelandi is much the same, but the flowers are striped with green and the numerous buds are green, so that it is less golden and the general effect is not so good. It has numerous narrow leaves.

Golden Stars—Bloomeria aurea.

Triteleias resemble Brodiaeas, but they have six, swinging anthers and the ovary has a stalk.

Indian Hyacinth
Triteleìa grandiflòra (Brodiaea Douglasii)
Blue
Spring, summer
Northwest and Utah

Though the general appearance of the plant is very different, the individual flowers of this beautiful plant very much resemble the bells of a Hyacinth, for they have the same waxy, semi-translucent texture. The bluish-green leaves, folded lengthwise and withering before the flower, are sometimes a foot long and the flower-stalk often reaches a height of two feet and bends beneath the weight of its lovely crown of blossoms. The cluster has four papery bracts at the base and is from three to four inches across, comprising about a dozen flowers, each nearly an inch long. They are pale-violet, with a bright-blue mid-vein on each division, the general effect being blue, with a white pistil and six stamens in two rows, all with blue anthers and the outer ones with broad, white filaments. It is wonderful to find these lovely and exotic-looking flowers, delicately scented, gleaming in the shadow of a dusky oak thicket or a deep canyon. They last a long time in water, becoming papery as they wither.

White Brodiaea
Triteleìa hyacinthìna
(Brodiaea lactea)
White
Spring
Cal., Oreg., Wash.

From one to two feet high, with very pretty flowers, about half an inch long, delicately striped with green on the outside, with six equal stamens, their filaments broad, triangular and slightly united at base, with yellow or purple anthers, and a green pistil. The leaf is grasslike, but thickish, and as long as the flower-stalk. These flowers are quite common and last a long time in water.

Ithuriel's Spear
Triteleìa láxa (Brodiaea)
Blue, purple
Spring
Cal., Oreg.

Very much like Harvest Brodiaea but rather taller, with more flowers in the cluster, and less waxy in texture, varying in color from blue to violet and occasionally white. This is common on hillsides and in adobe fields. The rather fanciful name was suggested by the spear carried by Milton's angel Ithuriel.

Indian Hyacinth—Triteleia grandiflora.

White Brodiaea—Triteleia hyacinthina.
Ithuriel's Spear—Triteleia laxa.

There are one or two kinds of Brevoortia.

Fire-cracker Flower
Brevoòrtia Ida-Màia (Brodiaea coccinea)
Red and green
Spring
Cal., Oreg.

A handsome plant, most extraordinary both in form and color. The stem is from one to three feet tall, with a few grasslike leaves, and bears a large cluster of six to thirteen flowers, one or two inches long, hanging on slender, reddish pedicels. They have bright-crimson tubes and apple-green lobes, sometimes turned back, showing the tips of the three pale-yellow anthers. There are also three stamens without anthers and broadened so that they look like three white or yellowish petals. The buds are also crimson, tipped with green, and the whole color scheme is wonderfully brilliant and striking. This grows in mountain canyons and on wooded hillsides, blooming in late spring.

There are several kinds of Muilla, much like Brodiaea and very much like Allium, but with no onion taste or smell.

Muilla
Muílla marítima
White
Spring
Cal., Nev.

A slender little plant, sometimes rather pretty, from three to nine inches tall, with sweet-scented flowers, about three-eighths of an inch or less across, white or greenish, striped with green outside, with six, bluish, swinging anthers. This grows in alkaline fields, on sea cliffs and mesas.

There are a good many kinds of Erythronium, all but one from North America, and, East and West, they are among our prettiest flowers. They have deep, membranous-coated, solid bulbs; a pair of netted-veined, unequal leaves, sometimes mottled with brown; flowers without bracts, large, nodding and bell-shaped, with usually six divisions, all colored alike, the tips turning back, each with a nectar-groove, and each with two or four little scales at base, or only the three inner divisions with scales; stamens on the receptacle, anthers not swinging; style more or less three-lobed; capsule more or less oblong and three-angled. The younger plants are often flowerless, with only one broad leaf, with a long leaf-stalk. The name is from a Greek word meaning "red," though these flowers are mostly yellow. The common name, Dog-tooth Violet, is old, and suggested by the little, white, toothlike offshoot often found on the bulb, but of course they are not in the least like Violets. In California they are often called Chamise Lily, and sometimes Adam and Eve, because the plant often bears a large and a small flower at the same time. Mr. Burroughs would like to call it Fawn Lily, on account of the mottled leaves of some kinds, which slightly suggest the ears of a fawn. Adder's-tongue, probably suggested by the long forked pistil, is also an old and usual name.

Muilla maritima.
Fire-cracker Flower—Brevoortia Ida-Maia.

Avalanche Lily
Dog-tooth Violet
Erythrònium montànum
White
Summer
Northwest

An exquisite kind, peculiarly graceful in form, with from one to nine, pure-white flowers, nearly three inches across, each petal prettily ornamented at the base with some orange-colored markings, arranged in a symmetrical scalloped pattern. The anthers are orange-yellow, the pistil white, the buds are pinkish and the leaves are very bright green and not mottled. This is very common around Mt. Rainier.

Glacier Lily
Dog-tooth Violet
Erythrònium parviflòrum
Yellow
Summer
Northwest

A lovely flower, much like E. grandiflorum, but the anthers are white or pale yellow. Around Mt. Rainier these beautiful plants often grow in large patches at the edge of the snow, alongside of the Avalanche Lily, E. montanum, but the two kinds do not seem to mingle.

Easter Bells
Dog-tooth Violet
Erythrònium grandiflòrum
Yellow
Spring, summer
Northwest and Utah

One of the loveliest of a charming group, growing in rich northern woods. The delicately-scented flowers, from one to six on a stalk, are about two inches across, clear yellow shading to white at the base, with purplish-red anthers, turning brown. A patch of these flowers bordering the edge of a glacier, as if planted in a garden-bed, is a sight never to be forgotten. Pushing their bright leaves right through the snow they gayly swing their golden censers in the face of winter and seem the very incarnation of spring. There are several similar kinds. In the Utah canyons these flowers in early spring are a wonderful sight, covering the wooded slopes with sheets of gold, and they seem to me to be the largest and handsomest of their clan, growing at an altitude of six thousand to eleven thousand five hundred feet, and blooming from March to July according to height. Easter Bells is a Utah name.

Dogtooth Violet—Erythronium grandiflorum.

Avalanche Lily—Erythronium montanum.
Glacier Lily—E. parviflorum.

Desert Lily
Hesperocállis undulàta
White
Spring
Cal., Ariz.

This is the only one of its kind, a wonderfully beautiful desert plant, much like an Easter Lily. The stout, pale, bluish stem, from six inches to two feet tall, has a delicate "bloom" and springs from a graceful cluster of narrow leaves, which are a foot and a half long, spreading widely, but not lying quite flat on the ground. They are pale bluish-green, with a narrow, crinkled, white border and folded lengthwise. The buds are bluish and the lovely flowers are about three inches long and pure-white, delicately striped with pale-green and blue on the outside, with yellow anthers and a white stigma, and with a papery bract at the base of each pedicel. The flowers are slightly fragrant and become papery and curiously transparent as they wither. In dry seasons these plants do not bloom at all, but the slightest moisture will cause them to send up a stout stem and crown it with exquisite blossoms, which look extraordinarily out of place on the arid desert sand around Yuma and Ft. Mohave. The bulb is eaten by the Indians.

Desert Lily—Hesperocallis undulata.

Lilies, the "lords of gardens," are perhaps the most beautiful and popular flowers everywhere and there are some wonderful ones in the West. They have tall, smooth, leafy stems, springing from scaly bulbs; large showy flowers, solitary or in terminal clusters; smooth, netted-veined leaves, often in whorls, and leaflike bracts. The flower-cup is funnel-formed, or bell-shaped, and has six, equal, spreading divisions, with a honey-bearing groove at the base of each; the stamens, with long anthers, swinging from the tips of long filaments; a long pistil, with a three-lobed stigma and the capsule oblong, with two rows of flat seeds in each of its cells. There are no true Lilies in Utah.

Small Tiger Lily
Lílium párvum
Orange-red
Summer
Cal., Oreg.

These tall plants carry a brilliant crown of small lilies, glowing like jewels in the dark moist woods they love. The stem is from one and a half to six feet high, covered with a slight down that rubs off, and springs from a small bulb with short, thick scales. The long, pointed, rich-green leaves are in whorls of five or six below, more scattered towards the top of the stalk. The flowers are rather more than an inch long, yellow at the base of the petals, shading through orange to vermilion at the tips and dotted with crimson in the throat. Usually there are six or seven in a cluster, but they have been found with many more in favorable situations and single plants in Yosemite have been seen with as many as thirty blossoms. The capsule is roundish and less than an inch long. These little Lilies are among the most attractive of their kind and grow somewhat freely in the high Sierras to an altitude of seven thousand feet and as far north as Oregon.

Small Tiger Lily—Lilium parvum.

Washington Lily
Shasta Lily
Lílium Washingtoniànum
White
Summer
Cal., Oreg.

In the Sierras, at an altitude of from three to over seven thousand feet, and as far north as the Columbia River, we may be fortunate enough to find this glorious Lily, growing in the forest in moderate shade and protected by the chaparral. It is not rare but nowhere very abundant. I shall never forget finding a group of three or four, growing near a huge fallen tree, in the woods at Wawona near Yosemite, where it is very fine. Their raiment is even more "white and glistering" than the cultivated Easter Lilies. The smooth, stout, purplish stem is from two to five feet high, adorned all the way up with successive whorls of handsome dark-green leaves, three or four inches long, thin in texture, with rippling margins, and shining as if they had been varnished. There are from two to twenty blossoms of shining white, each one from three to four inches long and as much across. The petals are cleft to the base, spreading wide apart when the flower is fully open, sometimes finely dotted with purple, and becoming purplish in fading. The anthers are yellow and the pistil green, and the bulb is large, with thin scales. The scent is delicious, having a whiff of spicy carnation added to the usual lily fragrance. This is never found in the Coast Range and is the only pure white American Lily. Shasta Lily is a variety with a small bulb. L. Párryi, the Lemon Lily, of southern California and Arizona, is similar in the form of its flowers, which are large and clear yellow, dotted lightly with deeper yellow. It grows in shady, moist spots in cool canyons and is very beautiful.

Washington Lily—Lilium Washingtonianum.

Leopard Lily
Lílium pardalìnum
Orange
Summer
Wash., Oreg., Cal.

A magnificent plant, from three to six feet tall, with bright-green leaves, thin in texture, smooth but not shiny, and mostly in whorls. The stem is crowned by a splendid cluster of flowers, usually about half a dozen together, but sometimes as many as thirty on one stalk. They measure three or four inches across and are pale-orange outside and deep-orange inside, spotted with maroon, often blotched with orange-yellow in the throat and tipped with scarlet. The anthers are purplish, changing to reddish-brown, and the pistil is bright-green. These plants often grow in large companies, in moist spots in the mountains, and are unrivaled in decorative beauty and brilliancy of coloring.

Tiger Lily
Lílium Columbiànum
Orange
Summer
Wash., Oreg.

A good deal like the last, but not so large. The petals are more turned back and they are orange-color all over, dotted with dark-red, and the anthers are pale orange-color, ripening to golden-brown. This is common in the Hood River Valley.

Ruby Lily
Chaparral Lily
Lílium rubéscens
White, pink
Summer
Cal., Oreg.

A glorious plant, from two to five feet tall, with leaves mostly in whorls, with rippled edges. The stem bears a magnificent cluster of blossoms, most wonderful in coloring, for the buds and young flowers are white, dotted with purple inside, with yellow anthers and a pale-green pistil, but they gradually change to pink, and deepen to ruby-purple as they fade, and the anthers and pistil also darken in color. The effect of the whole cluster is therefore white at the top, shading through pink to almost crimson below. The flowers are even more deliciously fragrant than the Washington Lily, which they resemble, except that they are not quite so large as the latter and stand more erect and the petals are not so spreading. This usually grows among chaparral in the Coast Ranges.

Tiger Lily—Lilium Columbianum.
Leopard Lily—Lilium pardalinum.

There are many kinds of Fritillaria, natives of the north temperate zone. In the East there are only cultivated ones, such as the familiar Crown Imperial, but we have a number growing wild in the West. They have bulbs with round, thick scales, developing into bulblets and sometimes resembling grains of rice. The flowers are bell-shaped, and nodding, with separate and nearly equal divisions, each with a nectar-spot at its base. They resemble Lilies, but the style is three-cleft, the honey-gland is a shallow pit and the flowers are smaller. The capsule is roundish and six-angled, containing numerous flat seeds. It is conspicuous and perhaps suggested the Latin name, meaning "dice-box."

Bronze Bells
Brown Fritillary
Fritillària atropurpùrea
Brown
Spring, summer
West

This plant is beautiful and decorative, and yet there is something weird about it. The flowers, an inch or more across, grow four or five in a cluster, on a smooth stalk about a foot tall, the long, narrow leaves scattered or in whorls. The bells, nodding on slender flower-stalks, are very unusual in coloring. They are greenish-yellow, streaked and spotted with maroon, and the long curling tips of the three-pronged pistil project like the forked tongue of an adder, so that somehow we feel that, in a previous existence, beautiful as it is now, it may have been a toad or some reptile. When we found this flower growing in the Grand Canyon, halfway down Bright Angel trail, it seemed entirely suitable to the mysterious spirit of the place. The general effect is bronze-color and the attractive name of Bronze Bells, or Mission Bells, is very appropriate. It has a small bulb of numerous, roundish scales. The pistils are often rudimentary.

Yellow Fritillary
Fritillària pùdica
Yellow
Spring
West, except Ariz.

A pretty little flower, a favorite with children, growing on grassy plains, with a smooth stem about six inches tall, and smooth, somewhat thickish, alternate or whorled leaves. The nodding flowers, about an inch long, are usually single, but sometimes as many as six on a stalk, various shades of yellow and orange, tinged with crimson and fading to dull-red. The smooth bulb is pure white, and made up of a number of rounded, thickish scales not resembling grains of rice, so the name Rice Root is not appropriate and the local Utah names, Crocus, Snowdrop, and Buttercup are absurd.

Bronze Bells—Fritillaria atropurpurea.

Yellow Fritillary—Fritillaria pudica.

There are several kinds of Yucca, natives of North and Central America; large plants, with dagger-like leaves, usually with long, thread-like fibers along the margins; flowers with bracts, nodding in a terminal cluster, somewhat bell-shaped, with six, thickish, white divisions; stamens short, with thickened filaments and small anthers; ovary with three united stigmas; capsule containing many, flat, black seeds. The flowers are pollinated by a little white moth, which lays its eggs in the ovary, but previously gathers pollen from many flowers and pushes it against the stigma after the eggs have been laid.

Our Lord's Candle
Spanish Bayonet
Yúcca Whípplei
White
Spring, summer
Cal., Ariz.

A noble plant, with no trunk, but sending up a magnificent shaft of flowers, from five to fifteen feet tall, springing from a huge, symmetrical bunch of dagger-like, bluish-green leaves. The cluster is composed of hundreds of waxy, cream-colored blossoms, sometimes tinged with purple, two inches across, crowded so closely together along the upper part of the stalk that the effect is a great, solid mass of bloom, three feet long. The white filaments are swollen, tipped with pale-yellow anthers; the pistil cream-color, with green stigmas. The large, white bracts are stiff and coarse, something like parchment, folded back so that the pinkish stalk is ornamented with a series of white triangles, symmetrically arranged. A hillside covered with hundreds of these magnificent spires of bloom, towering above the chaparral, is a wonderful sight. After they have blossomed, the tall, white stalks remain standing for some time, so that the hills look as if they had been planted with numbers of white wands.

The genus Cleistoyucca resembles Yucca, but the divisions of the flower are very thick and there is no style.

Joshua Tree
Tree Yucca
Cleistoyúcca arboréscens
(Yucca)
Greenish-white
Spring, summer
Cal., Ariz., Utah

A tree, grotesque and forbidding in aspect, but with a weird sort of beauty, looming black against the pale desert landscape, with a great, thick, rough trunk, fifteen to thirty feet high, and a few thick, contorted branches, stretching out like a giant's arms and pointing ominously across the sandy waste. The branches are thatched with the shaggy husks of dead leaves and from their tips they thrust out a great bunch of dagger-like leaves and a big, ponderous cluster of pallid, greenish flowers or heavy, yellowish fruits. The coarse flowers are about two inches across, with a clammy smell like toadstools, and the bracts are dead white. This grows in the Mohave Desert and is at its best around Hesperia, where one may see the most fantastic forest that it is possible to imagine. Elsewhere it is smaller and more like other Yuccas in shape. It was called Joshua Tree by the early settlers, it is said because they fancied that its branches pointed towards the Promised Land. The fruits are relished by the Indians, who utilize the fibers from the leaves for weaving baskets, ropes, hats, horse-blankets, etc., and make a pulp from the stems, used for soap.

Our Lord's Candle—Yucca Whipplei.
[very small part of cluster]

There are several kinds of Trillium, of North America and Asia; with tuberous root-stocks; three, netted-veined leaves, in a whorl at the top of the stem; a single flower with three, green sepals, three petals, six, short stamens, and three styles; capsule berry-like and reddish, containing many seeds. The Latin name means "triple."

Wake-robin
Birthroot
Tríllium ovàtum
White
Spring, summer
Northwest

A charming plant, about a foot tall, with a single beautiful blossom, set off to perfection by its large, rich green leaves. The flower is two or three inches across, with lovely white petals, which gradually change to deep pink. It is a pleasure to find a company of these attractive plants in the heart of the forest, where their pure blossoms gleam in the cool shade along some mountain brook. They resemble the eastern Large-flowered Trillium and grow in the Coast Ranges.

Wake-robin—Trillium ovatum.

There are three kinds of Xerophyllum.

Squaw-grass
Bear Grass
Xerophýllum tènax
White
Summer
Northwest

This is a magnificent plant, from two to six feet high, with a very stout, leafy stem, springing from a very large tuft of wiry, grass-like leaves, which spread out gracefully like a fountain. They are from one to two and a half feet long, dark-green on the upper side and pale-gray on the under, with rough edges. The imposing flower cluster is borne at the top of the stalk and is about a foot long, broad at the base and tapering to a blunt point, and composed of hundreds of fragrant, cream-white flowers, each about half an inch across, with slender, white pedicels, and so closely crowded together that the effect is very solid, yet made feathery by the long stamens. It is a fine sight to come across a company of these noble plants in a mountain meadow, rearing their great shafts of bloom far above their neighbors. They are very handsome around Mt. Rainier. They are said to blossom only once in five or seven years and then to die. The leaves are used by Indians in making their finest baskets. Unfortunately the size of this book does not admit of an illustration.

There are two kinds of Maianthemum, an eastern one and the following, which also grows in Europe and Asia.

Wild Lily-of-the-valley
Maiánthemum bifòlium
White
Spring, summer
Wash., Oreg., Cal.

This is a very attractive, woodland plant, from four to fourteen inches tall, with handsome, glossy, rich green leaves, and a rather stout stem, bearing a pretty cluster, two or three inches long, of many, small, waxy-white flowers, with four divisions. They have four stamens, with thread-like filaments and small, yellowish anthers, the stigma has two lobes and the berry is red. This grows in rich soil in the mountains and is much handsomer than its eastern relation and strongly sweet-scented. The Latin name means "blooming in May."

Wild Lily-of-the-valley—Maianthemum bifolium.

There are several kinds of Streptopus, much like Disporum, but the pedicels of the flowers are twisted or bent.

White Twisted Stalk
Stréptopus amplexifòlius
Whitish
Spring, summer
U. S. except Southwest

This is a fine plant, two or three feet tall, with a smooth, branching, bending stem and handsome leaves, thin in texture, with strongly marked veins and pale with whitish "bloom" on the under side. The greenish-white flowers are about half an inch long and hang on very slender, crooked pedicels, from under the leaves, and the oval berries are red and contain many seeds. This grows in moist soil, in cold mountain woods, up to an altitude of ten thousand feet and across the continent. The Greek name means "twisted stalk."

Pink Twisted Stalk
Stréptopus ròseus
Pink
Spring, summer
U. S. except Southwest

A smaller plant, from one to two and a half feet tall, with a slightly hairy stem, ornamented with pretty leaves, green on both sides and hairy along the edges, and hung with pretty, little, dull purplish-pink flowers, more or less streaked with deeper color and less than half an inch long. This grows in the same sort of places as the last and is also found across the continent.

There are two kinds of Stenanthella; smooth herbs, with bulbs and small nodding flowers, in bracted clusters, the divisions of the perianth separate, without glands or distinct claws; the short stamens inserted at the base of the divisions; the styles three; the capsule with three beaks and containing oblong, winged seeds.

Stenanthella
Stenanthélla occidentàlis
Brownish
Spring, summer
Northwest

This is a graceful plant, from ten to twenty inches tall, with long, rather narrow leaves and a slender stem, terminating in a long spray of about ten, rather pretty, little brownish-green or purplish flowers, each less than half an inch long. This grows in shady places.

White Twisted Stalk—Streptopus amplexifolius.
Pink Twisted Stalk—Streptopus roseus.
Stenanthella occidentalis.

There are several kinds of Camassia, one eastern; herbs with onion-like bulbs, long, narrow leaves and thin, dry bracts. The flowers are blue of various shades, with six, separate, somewhat spreading divisions, each with a stamen on its base, the anthers swinging, the style threadlike, with a three-cleft tip; the capsule three-lobed, with several seeds in each compartment. Varieties of Camassia have long been cultivated in European gardens. The name is derived from Quamash, the Indian name for these plants.

Camass, Quamash
Camássia quámash
Blue
Summer
Northwest and Utah

Looking across the vivid green of wet meadows and marshes, the deep blue patches of this flower are often conspicuous and beautiful. They grow from one to over two feet high, taller than the grasslike leaves, forming a loose cluster, with papery bracts. The flowers are from an inch and a half to over two inches across, the six divisions spreading out into a star. The buds are tinged with turquoise-blue and striped with purple, giving a fine iridescent effect, and the flowers, which fade very quickly, are often exceedingly handsome, varying in color from dark-blue to white, but usually deep, bright purplish-blue, with a green ovary, a long purple style and yellow anthers, with purple filaments. They are larger and handsomer in northern California than in Yosemite. Grizzly bears are fond of the bulbs and the Indians of the Northwest prized them as a delicacy, indeed the Nez Percé war in Idaho was caused by encroachments on a territory where they were abundant. They were cooked elaborately in pits, care being taken to avoid the poisonous bulbs of the Death Camass, which resemble them. The Indians also boil the bulbs in water and make good molasses from them, which they use on festive occasions. This is sometimes called Wild Hyacinth, but the name is poor, as it does not resemble a hyacinth in character.

Camass—Camassia quamash.

There are six kinds of Clintonia, of North America and Asia; with creeping rootstocks and a few, broad root-leaves; flowers without bracts, their divisions separate, equal or nearly so, each with a stamen at its base; style with two or three, inconspicuous lobes; fruit a berry. These plants were named in honor of De Witt Clinton, Governor of New York, a naturalist, interested in botany, so Thoreau need not have been so annoyed at their having been given this name.

Red Clintonia
Clintònia Andrewsiàna
Red, pink
Spring, summer
Oreg., Cal.

A magnificent plant, one or two feet high, with five or six, exceedingly handsome, glossy, rich green leaves, very conspicuous and sometimes a foot long, and a tall, slightly downy flower-stalk, usually with a few flowers scattered along it, and crowned with a large, roundish cluster of beautiful flowers. They are about three-quarters of an inch long, very rich in color, a deep shade of warm reddish-pink, or crimson, not common in flowers. The form of the cluster varies a good deal; sometimes the flowers are not mostly at the top, but clustered quite thickly along all the upper part of the stalk. The large, deep-blue berries are very handsome and, altogether, this is one of our most conspicuous and attractive woodland plants, especially when growing in the deep shade of redwood forests.

Queen-cup White Clintonia
Clintònia uniflòra
White
Spring
Northwest

In rich moist soil, in shady woods, we find this lovely flower, with a white chalice and heart of pale gold, surrounded by two or three, beautiful, large, glossy leaves, resembling those of Lily-of-the-valley, and fairly carpeting the ground in favorable situations. The slender flower-stalk is hairy, six to ten inches tall, and usually bears a single flower, an inch or more across, with pure-white petals that soon drop off. The fruit is a handsome blue berry.

C. uniflora.
Red Clintonia—C. Andrewsiana.

There are a good many kinds of Vagnera, natives of America and Asia, with a single stem, scaly below and leafy above; the leaves alternate, with short leaf-stalks or none; the flowers small, the divisions equal and spreading, white or greenish, in a cluster; the berry round, usually with one or two seeds.

False Solomon's Seal.
Wild Spikenard
Vágnera amplexicàulis
(Smilacina)
White
Spring
West

It is a pity that all flowers cannot have really individual names. "False" is especially unattractive and "Solomon's Seal" is confusing, as the flowers are not alike, but this is the old name used all over the world, so it will have to stand, though unworthy of this pleasing plant. It is from one to three feet high, with large, light-green leaves, usually slightly downy on the under side. The flower-cluster is sweet-scented and composed of numerous, very small, cream-white flowers, the conspicuous parts of which are the stamens, white and larger than the petals, giving a feathery appearance to the whole cluster. The fruit is a light-red berry, very finely sprinkled with dark-red dots. This fine tall plant is very decorative and is common in rich moist woods. The name was given in honor of Wagner.

Star-flowered Solomon's Seal
Vágnera sessilifòlia
(Smilacina)
White
Spring
West

A gracefully bending plant, from one to two feet high, springing from a slender root-stock. The bright light-green leaves, without leaf-stalks and clasping at base, have a slight "bloom" like some lily leaves and are handsome and conspicuous, but not at all coarse, and are usually very smooth, but sometimes minutely downy. The small, delicate, cream-white flowers, on a very slender, angled flower-stalk, grow in a loose cluster and the berries are reddish-purple or nearly black. This charming plant sometimes forms large patches in moist, rich soil in shady places and its pretty foliage is often very noticeable beside the railroad tracks in Utah.

Star-flowered Solomon's Seal—V. sessilifolia.
False Solomon's Seal—Vagnera amplexicaulis.

Fairy Bells are graceful plants, growing in rich, moist, mountain woods, with smoothish, or slightly hairy, branching stems, leafy above and with scaly bracts below, springing from slender root-stocks; leaves netted-veined, alternate, without leaf-stalks, smooth and thin in texture and often clasping the stem; rather small, bell-shaped flowers, hanging from under the leaves, with six stamens and a slender style, with one or three stigmas; the fruit a yellow or red berry. Disporum is from the Greek meaning "double-seed," as in some kinds there are two seeds in each cell of the ovary.

Fairy Bells
Drops of Gold
Dísporum trachycàrpum
(Prosartes)
Yellowish-white
Spring, summer
West

A very attractive mountain plant, growing near streams. It is from nine to twenty-four inches tall, with an angled stem, pale green above and reddish below. The delicate flowers, about half an inch long, with a three-lobed green stigma and yellow anthers, grow singly or in clusters of two or three, nodding shyly under the pretty leaves, which are dull above and very shiny on the under side, with oddly crumpled edges and set obliquely on the stem. The berry when unripe is orange color and suggested the name Drops of Gold, but becomes bright red when it matures in June. D. Hookeri is similar, but the style is not three-lobed and the leaves are slightly rough to the touch and are not so thin or crumpled. They spread out so flat that they make a green roof over the flowers, completely screening them from the passer-by. This grows in shady woods, but not near streams.

Fairy Bells—Disporum trachycarpum.
Drops of Gold—Disporum Hookeri.

Perhaps the most characteristic western flowers are the members of the genus Calochortus. They grow freely all through the West, as far north as British America, and down into Mexico, but they never get east of Nebraska, so these gay and graceful flowers may be considered the peculiar property of the West. Calochortus means "beautiful grass" and the leaves are usually grasslike, the stems slender and the flowers bright in color, decorative and interesting in form. They have three sepals, often greenish, and three large, colored petals, with a honey-gland, usually covered with hairs, at the base of each. They are allied to true Tulips, so the popular name is suitable, and they fall into three groups: Globe Tulips, with nodding, globular flowers, and nodding capsules; Star Tulips, with erect, star-like flowers and nodding capsules; and Mariposa Tulips, with large, somewhat cup-shaped flowers and erect capsules. Mariposa means "butterfly" in Spanish and is appropriate, for the brilliant hairy spots on the petals are wonderfully like the markings of a butterfly's wing and the airy blossoms seem to have but just alighted on the tips of their slender stalks. They usually grow on dry open hillsides and their leaves have often withered away before the flowers bloom. The various forms run into each other, so that it is impossible to determine all the different species. They have solid bulbs, some of which are edible, considered a delicacy by the Indians and called Noonas.

Golden Lily Bell
Yellow Globe Tulip
Calochórtus amàbilis
Yellow
Spring
California

A charming plant, with pale bluish-green foliage, with a beautiful "bloom," which sets off the clear-yellow blossoms to perfection. There are from two to twenty flowers on each stem and the petals are smooth, except for a neat, stiff fringe of hairs along the margins and the matted hairs on the glands, which are often reddish. These lovely flowers, common in northern California, are peculiarly fresh in color and when growing among the grass in the shade of oak trees they have the springlike charm of Daffodils in English woods.

Yellow Globe Tulip—Calochortus amabilis.

Satin-bell.
White Globe Tulip
Calochórtus álbus
White
Spring
California

Beautiful and popular flowers, with a great deal of individuality and quite Japanese in the decorative arrangement of the graceful stems and glossy, rich green foliage. The narrow root-leaf is over a foot long and spreads on the ground and other smaller leaves are disposed along the bending stem, which is from one to two feet tall and hung with pretty light-green buds and beautiful drooping blossoms, over an inch long, pearly white, sometimes tinged with lilac, with a satiny sheen and delicate yet crisp in texture. The papery sepals are greenish-white and the petals are sometimes tinged with purple at the base and are prettily fringed with hairs along the edges and often cross their tips in a very engaging way. They are covered inside with long, silky, white or yellow hairs and the glands are crescent-shaped, with close, short, sticky, white or yellow hairs, and form pale-green humps on the outside of the petals; the anthers are cream-color and the pistil whitish. The capsule is one or two inches long, with a short beak and brown seeds. These plants grow on shady banks in the Coast Ranges and have several pretty common names, such as Lantern of the Fairies and Alabaster Tulip, as well as the misleading name Hairbell, which causes this flower to be confused with the Harebell or Campanula.

Satin Bell—Calochortus albus.

White Star Tulip
Calochórtus nùdus
White
Summer
California

This is a delicate and charming little flower, growing best in meadowy places in the woods of the Sierra Nevada Mountains at moderate altitudes, sometimes to a height of over seven thousand feet. The single, ribbonlike leaf is much taller than the flower-stalk, which is only a few inches high and bears several pretty flowers, measuring over an inch across, with pale-green sepals and three pure-white or pale-lilac, fan-shaped petals, with a little notch in the edge, almost without hairs and marked with a lilac crescent at the base; the honey-gland is divided crosswise by a toothed scale and the anthers are light blue. The nodding capsule is pointed at both ends.

White Pussy's Ears
Calochórtus Maweànus
White, gray
Spring
Cal., Oreg.

A charming little plant, with lovely little flowers, about an inch across, with white or pale-lilac sepals and white petals, hairy all over inside, often lilac at the base, the crescent-shaped gland covered with violet hairs and the anthers and pistil lilac. Usually the general effect is of a most delicate shade of gray and the little blossoms do not droop, but look straight up at one from among the grass. This is common in northern California.

Yellow Pussy's Ears.
Yellow Star Tulip.
Calochórtus Bénthami
Yellow
Spring
California

Much like the last in character, from three to seven inches tall, with bluish-green, stiffish leaves and a few quaintly pretty flowers. They are about an inch across, clear light-yellow, with smooth sepals and the petals thickly covered with yellow hairs and sometimes brown at the base. This is common in the Sierra foothills.

Star Tulip—Calochortus nudus.
Pussy's Ears—C. Maweanus.

Butterfly Tulip
Mariposa Tulip
Calochórtus lùteus
var. oculàtus
Many colors
Spring, summer
California

The commonest kind in northern California, found in both the Sierra Nevada and Coast Mountains, and one of the most beautiful of all the Mariposas. The broad petals, each about an inch and a half long, are usually white, lilac, or yellowish, with an "eye" like that on a peacock's feather, giving the name oculatus. Occasionally they are deep rose-color, as in the colored picture, though this is not typical, and have a vivid blotch of shaded maroon and crimson and an orange spot on each petal, with some maroon-colored hairs at the base. The sepals are striped with pink and maroon and twist into spirals as they fade; the pistil and the blunt anthers are mauve; the honey-gland narrowly crescent-shaped; the leaves pale-green and the delicate stem over a foot tall. This Mariposa is extremely variable and seems sometimes to merge into C. venústus, a similar kind, and gorgeous varieties of both may be seen along the Yosemite road on the down grade to Wawona. There are many similar Mariposas, but the casual flower-lover who finds any of these beautiful flowers will probably be satisfied to know that they are Butterfly Tulips, without going into the technical peculiarities which differentiate them.

Yellow Mariposa Tulip
Calochórtus lùteus
var. citrìnus
Yellow
Spring
California

A fine robust plant, about a foot tall, with a stout stem, light, bright green leaves, and exceedingly handsome flowers, over two inches across. The sepals are yellowish, with a black spot and streaks of brown, and the petals are deep lemon-yellow, each with a rich maroon spot near the center and a hairy, brown, crescent-shaped gland below, often flecked with maroon at the margins and base, with cream-colored anthers and a yellowish pistil. This is very much like a Tulip in character and looks very gay and cheerful growing in green fields. The typical C. luteus is similar, but smaller and duller in color.

Butterfly Tulip—Calochortus luteus. var. oculatus.

Yellow Mariposa Tulip—Calochortus luteus var. citrinus.

Orange Mariposa Tulip
Calochórtus Kénnedyi
Orange-red
Spring
Cal., Ariz.

A wonderful flower, exceedingly brilliant and unusual in color, not quite like anything else in nature. The stout, firm stem is from two inches to over a foot tall and the leaves are dark-green, with a delicate bluish "bloom." The flowers are about two inches across, with pale-green sepals, bordered with pale-pink and orange inside, and beautiful petals, thick in texture and easily bruised, delicate peach-color outside and bright orange-vermilion within, each petal ornamented with a purplish gland, covered with matted hairs and crossed with a band of long vermilion hairs. When the stems are very short the flaming flowers look like Crocuses, sprouting out of the barren desert soil, but when they are tall they have the gorgeous effect of Tulips. These plants grow in the Mohave Desert, but are rather rare in California. They are very abundant in the foothills and on the mountain slopes of Arizona, giving a beautiful orange-red color to the landscape for miles in spring, there being literally thousands in a small area.

Sego Lily
Mariposa Tulip
Calochórtus Nuttállii
White, pale lilac
Early summer
Ariz., Cal., Utah

These pretty flowers are about two inches across, their white petals tinged with yellowish-green or lilac, and often delicately fluted at the edges, often with hairy spots inside the petals at their base, the whole flower very variable in coloring. These Mariposas grow all through the Southwest. In the Grand Canyon they begin to come out early in May, among the dry grasses halfway down the Bright Angel trail, and are a lovely shade of clear lilac. The slender stem, about a foot tall, often bears a small bulb near the base. It is called Sego Lily (pronounced Sègo) in Utah and is the "State flower." Its bulbs formed a substantial part of the food of the early Mormon pioneers when they crossed the desert and the flower is therefore held in great esteem in Utah.

Sego Lily—Calochortus Nuttallii.

IRIS FAMILY. Iridaceae.

A large family, widely distributed and found throughout our continent. Perennial herbs, with bracts; the leaves long, narrow, toothless, and sheathing; the flowers showy, perfect and regular, twisted in the bud, not falling off in withering, of three and six parts; the three stamens on the base of the sepals, their anthers turning outward; the single style with three branches; the ovary inferior, becoming a three-celled, usually three-angled, many-seeded capsule. This family is noticeably distinguished from the Lily family by the inferior ovary, and from the Amaryllis family by the three stamens.

There are many kinds of Iris. To the casual observer the flowers appear to have nine petals of different sizes, but in reality there are three sepals, three petals, and three petal-like branches of the style. The three outer divisions, or sepals, are large and spread or turn down; the three inner divisions, or petals, are usually narrower and are erect; the style branches arch over and under each is a stamen. The sepals and petals have claws, which are united below and form a tube; the capsule is large and contains many, flat, black seeds, in one or two rows in each cell; the large rootstock is usually fleshy. Iris is from the Greek for "rainbow," in allusion to the variegated tints, and Flower-de-luce from the French "fleur-de-lis," or "lily-flower." Many odd and beautiful kinds are cultivated from the Old World. Orris-root is made from the roots of a Florentine species.

Western Blue Flag
Ìris Missouriénsis
Violet, blue
Spring, summer
West, except Wash, and Oreg.

A very handsome and decorative plant, growing in large clumps, in damp situations, from stout, creeping rootstocks. The stiff, sword-shaped leaves, mostly shorter than the stems, are smooth and light bluish-green and the stout stems, from one to two feet high, bear usually two, pale-violet flowers, about three inches long, emerging from thin, papery bracts. The sepals are white, or pale blue, delicately veined with violet, with a yellow-veined rib down the middle, the petals are pale blue or pale violet, veined with purple, and the buds are yellowish, veined with brown. This grows in profusion in the Yosemite meadows, at the foot of El Capitan, and is delicately beautiful, but would be more effective if the coloring were a little stronger.

Western Blue Flag—Iris Missouriensis.

Douglas Iris
Ìris Douglasiàna
Purple, lilac, cream
Spring, summer
Cal., Oreg.

A beautiful kind, very common in the Coast Ranges. It grows in patches, or singly, and has rather dark green leaves, longer than the flower-stalks, and lovely flowers, which vary exceedingly in color. Near the coast they are usually bluish-purple, but in mountain woods they run from violet and mauve to pink, yellow, and white. They are often striped with white and yellow, delicately veined with purple, and measure three or four inches across. In the redwood forests, in northern California, they are peculiarly large and beautiful, their delicate tints of cream and straw-color, tinged with mauve and marked with reddish-purple, and wonderfully set off by their dark forest background. This kind often blooms throughout the rainy season, but chiefly in early spring.

Hartweg's Iris
Ìris Hartwégi
Yellow and violet
Summer
California

This odd and pretty little Iris grows in half-dry, open forests, in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. The many flower-stems, from six to twelve inches tall, are overtopped by some of the long, narrow leaves and the flowers are from one and a half to two inches long, either yellow, veined with violet, or pale-violet, veined with purple. The two color forms often grow together and attract much attention from tourists. They look very pretty, springing from a carpet of fallen pine-needles, in the forests along the Wawona road near Yosemite.

Ground Iris
Ìris macrosìphon
Blue, purple
Spring, winter
California

A beautiful kind, forming low clumps of many, very narrow leaves, from five to twenty inches long and much taller than the flower-stalks. The handsome flowers are over three inches across, bright purplish-blue, the sepals veined with darker color and marked with a white stripe. This is common on grassy hills near the coast and farther inland becomes taller and paler in color. The flowers are slightly sweet-scented and begin to bloom in January. The Hupa Indians used the leaves for making twine and rope for their nets and snares. There are many other beautiful western Irises.

Iris Douglasiana.

There are numerous kinds of Sisyrinchium, attractive little plants, all American, many from South America; with fibrous roots; grasslike leaves; slender, flat stems, sometimes branching; papery and green bracts and pretty flowers, that soon wither, on very slender pedicels, the six spreading divisions all alike; the filaments of the stamens united; the style branches slender, the capsule roundish, containing round seeds.

Blue-Eyed Grass
Sisyrínchium béllum
Blue
Summer
Cal., Oreg.

The deep blue stars of this pretty plant are a beautiful feature of the fields near Santa Barbara, and in other parts of California, in summer; in fact they are so plentiful in some places that they are a menace to the farmers. They grow in clumps, about a foot tall, among the grass. The stems are somewhat branching, the leaves are shorter than the stem, and the bracts are about an inch long, green and sheathing. There are about seven flowers on each stem, in a loose cluster, each about an inch across and handsomer than their relations in the East. They vary in tint from bright blue to purple, with a yellow "eye," and their divisions are prettily notched at the tips, with a little prong. The anthers are arrow-shaped, the style short, with three very small stigmas, and the small, oddly-shaped, little capsule is dark-brown when ripe, and perhaps suggested one of the common names, Nigger-babies. It is called Azulea and Villela by Spanish-Californians.

Golden-Eyed Grass
Sisyrínchium Califórnicum
Yellow
Spring, summer
Cal., Oreg.

This is very much like Blue-eyed Grass, but the flowers are bright yellow, the stems are about a foot tall, broadly winged and not branching, and the leaves are somewhat broader. The pretty flowers are nearly an inch across and there are from three to seven in a cluster. The filaments are united at the base only, the style is cleft to below the middle, and the small capsule is rather oblong. This grows in swampy places near the ocean. S. Arizònicum has yellow flowers and branching stems and grows in Arizona. S. Élmeri also has yellow flowers, with purple lines, and is found in wet places in the Sierras. When pressed and dried the yellow-flowered Sisyrinchiums stain the paper reddish-purple.

Blue-eyed Grass—Sisyrinchium bellum.

ORCHID FAMILY. Orchidaceae.

A very large family, most abundant in the tropics; curious plants, with oddly beautiful flowers. Perhaps because they are also rather rare they seem to have a peculiar fascination for the public; in fact almost any strangely-shaped flower is apt to be dubbed an orchid by the passer-by. They are perennial herbs, with various kinds of roots, some of them parasitic, usually with alternate, toothless leaves, the lower ones sheathing the stem. In some kinds the leaves have dwindled to scales. The flowers are perfect, irregular, with six divisions; the three sepals are alike and colored like petals; two of the three petals are alike, but the central one differs in size and shape and is called the lip. This is conspicuously colored, often spurred, and contains nectar for the attraction of "long-tongued" insects, on which these plants depend mostly for cross-pollination. The mechanism for this purpose is curious and interesting. The stigma is usually a broad sticky surface and its style is united with the filaments and forms, in front of the lip, a column which is usually capped by a single two-celled anther, containing two clusters of pollen, one in each cell. Each cluster consists of a few waxy grains, held together by cobweb-like threads, which run together and terminate in a sticky disk. These disks adhere to the insects, which push in to get the nectar, and are transported to the gummy stigma of another flower. The inferior ovary develops into a three-valved capsule, containing numerous minute seeds. Orchis is the ancient Greek name.

There is only one kind of Cephalanthera in North America; with creeping rootstocks; flowers in terminal spikes, with bracts; sepals and petals nearly equal; petals somewhat united and hooded; lip more or less pouched.

Phantom Orchis
Cephalanthèra Austínae
White
Summer
Northwest

In dense mountain forests these strange plants shimmer like pallid ghosts among the dark trees. They are pure translucent white throughout, stem and all, and the leaves have shrunk to white sheaths, an inch or two long. The stems are one to two feet tall and bear spikes of numerous flowers, each over half an inch long, with the lip shorter than the sepals and petals, which are alike. They are beautiful and yet not quite pleasing, for we feel instinctively that there is something unnatural about them and, indeed, the strange absence of any green coloring matter in their make-up indicates that they are incapable of making their own food from the elements and draw their nourishment from decaying vegetation, or are parasitic on other plants. They range northward from Yosemite but are nowhere very abundant. I found several growing near the trail from Little Yosemite Valley to Cloud's Rest and a good many in the woods near the foot of Mt. Shasta, where they seem to be quite common.

Phantom Orchis—Cephalanthera Austinae.

There are several kinds of Serapias, widely distributed; tall, stout herbs, with creeping rootstocks and leafy stems; the leaves plaited lengthwise and clasping at base; the flowers with leafy bracts, in terminal racemes. The flowers have no spur; the sepals and petals are separate and nearly equal; the lip broad, free, concave below, constricted near the middle.

Stream Orchis Chatter-box
Seràpias gigantèa
(Epipactis)
Reddish and greenish-yellow
Summer
West, etc.

A handsome plant, decorative and curious in form and unusual in coloring. It is from one to four feet tall, with a stout, leafy stem bearing three to ten flowers and smoothish leaves, with prominent veins. The sepals are reddish or greenish-yellow and the petals pinkish, veined with maroon. The lip is pouched at the base, with a winged margin and a pendulous tip, which swings freely as if on a hinge, so that it quivers when the plant is shaken. Although the flowers are very handsome this curious tremulous motion, which makes them seem almost alive, gives them a quaint likeness to an old woman in a sunbonnet, with a hooked nose and chattering jaw. They have a slight scent and the plant is quite common along streams and in wet places, in the West and in Colorado and Texas. Some botanists think it is identical with a variety which grows in the Himalaya Mountains. It was named for the Egyptian deity, Serapis.

Stream Orchis—Serapias gigantea.

There are several kinds of Corallorrhiza, widely distributed in the north temperate zone and growing in dense woods; pinkish or straw-colored plants, more or less parasitic, with large roots resembling branches of coral; the leaves all reduced to sheathing, papery scales; the flowers in terminal racemes, without bracts, on short pedicels, which turn down in fruit, mostly with a short spur, the sepals and petals about equal, the upper ones curving in.

Coral-root
Corallorrhìza multiflòra
Reddish-yellow
Summer
Wash., Oreg., Cal., Utah

The curious knobby rootstock, shaped like a bit of coral, gives the name to this strange and rather unwholesome looking plant. From living on decayed vegetation it has lost its green leaves, and has only a few papery sheaths in their place, and the thick, translucent stem is pale and smooth, from one to two feet tall, pink at the base, shading to golden-brown towards the top. The flowers, less than half an inch across, are usually yellow, with reddish-brown tips, and the white, three-lobed lip is spotted with purple. The buds are yellow and brown and the whole color effect is very pretty, as if the plant were trying to match the russet tints of the floor of the forest. The flowers vary from several to many and grow in a long cluster, hanging down when their seeds begin to ripen. This is widely distributed, growing also in the East, but nowhere common.

Coral-root
Corallorrhìza Bigelòwii
Reddish-yellow
Summer
Wash., Oreg., Cal., Utah

This is a similar plant, but handsomer, with much larger flowers, duller in coloring and striped not spotted. Instead of a spur the base of the sepals is swollen over the ovary, which develops gradually into an oblong fruit to which the flower still clings, so that the older flowers, on the lower part of the stalk, give an odd effect of having long, swollen necks. The seeds are small and numerous. There are other kinds, similar in general effect.

Flowers of C. Bigelowii.
Coral-root—Corallorrhiza multiflora.

There are numerous kinds of Limnorchis; the lower leaves clasping or sheathing the stem; the flowers mostly in spikes or racemes; sepals nearly equal, petals mostly smaller than the sepals; lip spreading or drooping, not toothed or lobed, with a spur. The Latin name means "marsh-dweller."

Sierra Rein Orchis
Limnórchis leucostàchys
(Habenaria)
White
Summer
Cal., Oreg., Wash.

Often in some favorable corner of a marsh, near the woods, we may see a dozen of these lovely plants, their robust leafy stalks sometimes as much as four feet tall, rearing their delicate spires of bloom above the lush grass. The long narrow leaves are bright-green and smooth and the numerous, small, delicate blossoms, sprinkled thickly along the stem, are pure white, each with a very long spur like a little tail, each with a green bract at the base of its little pedicel, and deliciously fragrant. There are several similar kinds, mostly with green flowers; this is the handsomest and least rare.

There are many kinds of Cypripedium, with large, broad leaves and one or several, large, drooping flowers, with two fertile anthers, with short filaments, one on each side of the column below the stigma, and a conspicuous, petal-like, sterile anther, arching over the stigma. They are easily known by the curious lip, which is a large inflated sac, suggesting both the common names, Lady's Slipper and Indian Moccasin, and the Greek, meaning "foot of Venus."

Mountain Lady's Slipper
Cypripèdium montànum
Brown and white
Summer
Northwest

Beautiful and decorative, with a stout, hairy stem, one to two feet tall and a few handsome flowers, rich and harmonious though not brilliant in coloring, with a lip about an inch long, dull-white, veined with purple, and brownish or purplish sepals and petals, very long, narrow, and twisted. This grows in mountain woods and is found around Yosemite. There is a picture in Miss Parsons's Wild Flowers of California. C. Califórnicum is similar, but with more flowers, the sepals and petals greenish-yellow, the lip pinkish. C. parviflòrum has a yellow lip and purplish sepals and grows in northern woods, across the continent. None of these plants is common.

Sierra Rein Orchis—Limnorchis leucostachys.

LIZARD-TAIL. Saururaceae.

A small family; ours are perennial astringent herbs, with alternate, toothless leaves, with leaf-stalks; flowers perfect, with bracts, in a dense, terminal spike, without calyx or corolla; stamens generally three or six; ovary with one to five stigmas; fruit a capsule or berry.

There are two kinds of Anemopsis.

Yerba Mansa
Anemópsis Califórnica
White
Spring
Cal., Ariz.

This plant bears several, large, cream-white flowers, which at the first glance appear to have from five to eight petals and a long, projecting knob in the center, but what appears to be a corolla is in reality an involucre, about an inch and a half across, and surrounding the base of a long, conical spike of numerous, small, greenish flowers. These are half-sunk in the fleshy substance of the spike and have no sepals or petals, but each has a small, white bract at its base, so that the spike appears to be covered with scales symmetrically arranged. The flower has from six to eight stamens on the base of the ovary and from three to four stigmas. The ovaries, which are superior, form small pods, opening at the top when ripe, so that in the end the spike is neatly pitted with holes. The rather thick, hollow, reddish stems are from six inches to two feet tall, covered with hair, and the smooth, light-green leaves, from two to ten inches long, are mostly from the root, with leaf-stalks which broaden at the base and partly sheathe the stem. The creeping rootstocks are peppery and acrid, used medicinally, and considered exceedingly valuable by Spanish-Californians. These pretty, odd-looking plants grow in alkaline or salty swamps in the south. The name is from the Greek meaning "anemone" and "appearance," but the flowers do not look very much like Anemones.

Yerba mansa—Anemopsis Californica.

SANDALWOOD FAMILY. Santalaceae.

This is a very small family in this country, for they prefer the tropics, and in those regions some are trees. Ours are usually parasitic on the roots of their neighbors. They have toothless, mostly alternate leaves, mostly without leaf-stalks or stipules, and small flowers, with a four- or five-lobed calyx and no corolla. The four or five stamens are opposite the calyx lobes, at the edge of a fleshy disk, and the ovary is one-celled and inferior, with one style, developing into a one-seeded fruit.

There are four kinds of Comandra, one of them European; smooth, perennial herbs, with alternate leaves, and flowers in clusters, without bracts. The calyx is more or less bell-shaped, usually with five lobes, its tube lined with a disk, the stamens inserted at base of the lobes and the anthers attached to the lobes by tufts of hairs.

Pale Comandra
Comándra pállida
Flesh-color, greenish, purplish
Spring, summer
Northwest, Nev., Utah, Ariz.

This is a rather pretty plant, growing from a few inches to about a foot tall, branching and rather woody below, with pale-green, smooth, slightly thickish, rather stiff leaves, which are reduced to pinkish scales on the lower stem. The flowers are small, usually flesh-color, thickish in texture, with slender pedicels, and form terminal, rather flat-topped clusters. The fruit, which is about the size of a small pea, is crowned by the remains of the calyx, like a rose-hip. This is common on dry plains and hillsides and is noticeable because of its pale and somewhat peculiar coloring.

Pale Comandra—C. pallida.

BIRTHWORT FAMILY. Aristolochiaceae

A rather small family, chiefly of warm countries, but widely distributed; herbs or shrubs; the leaves alternate or from the root, with leaf-stalks, more or less heart-shaped, without stipules; the flowers perfect, mostly large, symmetrical or irregular in form, with or without a corolla; the calyx with three or six lobes, or irregular; the stamens six to many, inserted on the pistil; the ovary wholly or partly inferior; the fruit a mostly six-celled capsule, containing many seeds.

There are several kinds of Asarum.

Wild Ginger
Ásarum Hartwégi
Brown
Spring
Cal., Oreg.

The handsome leaves of this perennial are its conspicuous feature. They have long, hairy leaf-stalks and are heart-shaped and toothless, from three to five inches broad, dark rich green, prettily veined and often also beautifully mottled with white, smooth on the upper surface and hairy on the under. We notice them immediately in the damp, dark woods they live in, but unless we look carefully we miss the single, large, strange, purplish-brown flower, the color of dead leaves, which nestles close to the ground as if trying to hide itself. This has twelve stamens, with stout filaments, and six styles, united at the base. There are no petals, but the hairy calyx has three lobes, which are sometimes an inch and a half long, and have long points like tails. The seed-vessel is roundish, crowned by the withered calyx and stamens. The rootstock cannot be used as a substitute for ginger, but smells and tastes very aromatic and pungent. This resembles the Wild Ginger of the East, but is handsomer.

Wild Ginger—Asarum Hartwegi.

BUCKWHEAT FAMILY. Polygonaceae.

A large family, widely distributed, mostly herbs or low shrubs, with toothless leaves, often with stipules sheathing the swollen joints of the stem. The small flowers have no petals, the calyx usually resembles a corolla and has from three to six divisions. There are from four to nine stamens and a superior, mostly triangular, ovary, with two or three styles or stigmas, becoming a dry, one-seeded fruit, generally brown or black. The kind from which flour is made is cultivated from northern Asia, and the name Buckwheat, from the German, means "beech-wheat," because the grain resembles minute beech-nuts. There are several common "weeds" belonging to this family, such as Dock, Sorrel, and Smartweed.

Chorizanthes are low herbs, with branching stems, without stipules, the leaves forming a rosette at the base and withering early. The small flowers have six sepals and are clustered in small heads, usually one flower in each papery involucre, which has from two to six teeth, with bristles at the tips; stamens usually nine, on the base of the perianth; styles three, with round-top stigmas.

Turkish Rugging
Chorizánthe fimbriàta
Pink
Spring
California

An odd, dry-looking plant, making pretty patches of purplish color on dry mesas. The stiff, roughish, purplish stem is a few inches tall, springing from a few dull-green or reddish root-leaves, branching abruptly and widely towards the top and bearing many small flowers. The involucres are deep-red or purple, with very prickly teeth, the sepals bright-pink, prettily fringed with white and striped with deeper color, and the filaments are long and threadlike, with purple anthers. The flowers are exceedingly pretty when closely examined, though too small to be very effective, but the plant as a whole is conspicuous both in color and form. C. staticoìdes is similar, but the sepals are not fringed.

Turkish Rugging—Chorizanthe fimbriata.

There are many kinds of Rumex, or Dock, coarse herbs, with leafy, branching, grooved stems, sheathed with conspicuous, papery stipules, strong tap-roots and acid or bitter juice. The large leaves are alternate, with smooth or wavy edges; the flowers small, greenish or reddish, on jointed pedicels, in branching clusters; the stamens six; the styles three, the stigmas shield-shaped, with a tuft of hairs at the tip. The six divisions of the flower are in two sets, the three outer small and green, the inner ones larger, colored and becoming veiny and larger in fruit, forming valves or wings, (often with a grain on the back of one or all of them,) which closely cover the three-sided fruit. These wings make the fruits of Docks more conspicuous than the flower. The Latin name comes from a word meaning "to suck," because the Romans sucked the leaves to allay thirst.

Sand Dock
Rùmex venòsus
Greenish
Spring, summer
West

In favorable situations this is a very handsome member of a rather plain genus, about a foot tall, with a smooth, stout reddish stem and smooth, pale, blue-green leaves, that feel like thin rubber, with a prominent mid-vein front and back. The small inconspicuous flowers develop into clusters of showy valves or wings, wonderfully odd and beautiful in coloring, resembling Begonia flowers. At first these wings are pale green, but they gradually brighten until they are all shades of salmon, rose-color, and red, fading to brown, and forming lovely combinations of vivid color, particularly against the arid background of the sand hills they frequent, and they last a long time in water and are exceedingly decorative. If these wings, which are nearly an inch across, are pulled apart, a three-sided akene, like a little nut, will be found inside them.

Sand Dock—Rumex venosus.

There are many kinds of Eriogonum, herbs or shrubs, natives of America, mostly western, growing in dry places, very numerous and difficult to distinguish. The leaves, without sheaths or stipules, are often covered with white down and usually grow in a spreading cluster at the base of the stem. The numerous small flowers, on very slender little pedicels, have six sepals, thin in texture and usually colored, and form clusters of various shapes, which emerge from more or less bell-shaped or top-shaped involucres, with six teeth. There are nine stamens, with threadlike filaments, often hairy, and a three-parted style with round-top stigmas. The name is from the Greek meaning "wooly knees," in allusion to the wooly joints of the stem.

Bottle-plant
Eriógonum inflàtum
Yellow
Spring
Southwest

This is a most extraordinary looking plant, with queer inflated, hollow stalks, about two feet high, swelling larger towards the top, and the branches, which are also swollen, sticking out awkwardly in all directions and bearing a few minute, yellow flowers. The stalks, which are pale bluish-green, suggest some strange sort of reed, but the dark-green leaves, growing in a rosette at the base, are something like the leaves of cultivated violets and seem entirely out of keeping with the rest of the plant. This grows on the plateau in the Grand Canyon and in similar places.

Swollen-stalk
Eriógonum elàtum
White, pink
Summer
Northwest

This is about a foot and a half tall and the stem is swollen, but not so much so as the last, and the flowers are more conspicuous, forming rather flat-topped clusters, about three-quarters of an inch across. The tiny flowers are cream-white or pinkish, the buds are deep-pink, and the stamens are long, with tiny, pinkish anthers. The leaves are dull-green on the upper side and pale with close down on the under and grow in a cluster at the base.

Swollen-stalk—E. elatum.
Bottle-plant—Eriogonum inflatum.

Butter Balls, Snow Balls
Eriógonum orthocàulon
Yellow, white
Spring, summer
Northwest

These are attractive plants, with pretty odd little balls of flowers, and are very conspicuous on dry, rocky mesas. They have a number of slender, pale, downy stems, about ten inches tall, springing from a close clump of small, dull-green leaves, pale with down on both sides and the smaller ones almost white, and bearing at the tip a dense flower-cluster, about an inch and a half across, which is very fuzzy and pretty. The little flowers have cream-color, downy involucres, the outer sepals are broader than the inner, and the pedicels, stamens, and pistil are all the same color as the sepals, either very bright sulphur-yellow or cream-white, but not mixed on the same plant, and sometimes tinged with red. These flowers are very popular with children in Idaho and they make necklaces of the fuzzy balls, something like "daisy chains."

Eriógonum compósitum
White, yellow
Summer
Northwest

This is a big handsome plant, with a thick, smooth stem, one or two feet tall and woody at base, and with thickish leaves, slightly downy, dark green in color on the upper side and white with close down on the under. The flowers form feathery, cream-white or yellow clusters, often more than six inches across, with red buds, and are beautiful and conspicuous on bare mountainsides, smelling of honey.

Butter Balls—Eriogonum orthocaulon.

Eriogonum compositum.

Buckwheat Bush, Flat-top
Eriógonum fasciculàtum
White
Spring, summer
Southwest

In favorable situations this is an attractive shrub, from two to four feet high, with shreddy, reddish bark and long, straight branches, standing stiffly up and crowded with small, thickish, stiffish leaves, dark olive-green on the upper side and pale with down on the under, with rolled-back margins. The flowers are about three-eighths of an inch across, dull-white or pinkish, with pink buds, forming large, feathery, flat-topped clusters, on long, stiff, bare, reddish flower-stalks, standing up stiffly all over the bush. This is a very valuable bee-plant and grows on mesas and mountain slopes.

Sulphur Flower
Eriógonum Bàkeri
Yellow
Summer
Ariz., Utah, New Mex., Col., Wyo.

This plant is quite pretty and conspicuous, as the flowers are bright in color and a peculiar shade of sulphur yellow. The stem is downy and often reddish, about a foot tall, with two or three branches at the top, each bearing a cluster of numerous small sweet-scented flowers with pretty stamens. The gray-green leaves grow mostly in a rosette on the ground and are covered with close white down on the under side. Their soft tints tone in well with the bright color of the flowers and the pale sandy soil in which they grow. E. flàvum is similar and widely distributed. E. incànum is the same color but much smaller, often tinged with red, the gray leaves forming a dense velvety mat, and it grows at high altitudes, in sandy spots on rocks, and is found around the Yosemite Valley. The alpine form is very small. There are several other kinds of Sulphur Flower.

Sulphur Flower—E. Bakeri.
Buckwheat Bush—Eriogonum fasciculatum.

Wild Buckwheat
Eriógonum racemòsum
Pink, white
Summer
Ariz., Utah

A pretty desert variety of Wild Buckwheat. The pale downy stem is from one to two feet tall, rather stout, with two or three erect branches at the top, and the leaves are all from the base, gray-green in color and covered with close white down on the under side. The small white and pink flowers are clustered along the branches in small heads, with reddish involucres, forming a spike about three inches long. The whole effect of the plant is curiously pale, but quite pretty. It grows plentifully on the rim of the Grand Canyon.

There are many kinds of Polygonum, East and West, many of them insignificant, some aquatic, some woody at base, with alternate leaves, and sheathing stipules; the sepals four or five; the stamens five to nine; the style with two or three branches and round-top stigmas. The name is from the Greek, meaning "many knees," in allusion to the swollen joints of some kinds.

Knot-weed
Alpine Smartweed
Polýgonum bistortoìdes
White
Summer
West

This is about two feet tall, very pretty and rather conspicuous, and the general effect of the smooth stem and sheathing, green leaves is somewhat grasslike. The flowers, which are small and cream-white, with pretty stamens and pinkish bracts, grow in close, roundish, pointed heads, an inch or two long, at the tips of the stalks. The buds are pink and the heads in which the flowers have not yet come out look as if they were made of pink beads. This is an attractive plant, growing among the tall grasses in mountain meadows, and smells deliciously of honey.

PIGWEED FAMILY. Chenopodiaceae.

A large family, widely distributed, growing usually in salty or alkaline soil; herbs or shrubs, generally succulent and salty or bitter, often covered with white scurf or meal, without stipules; leaves thick, usually alternate, sometimes none; flowers perfect or imperfect, small, greenish, without petals; calyx with two to five sepals, rarely with only one, pistillate flowers sometimes with no calyx; stamens as many as the sepals, or fewer, and opposite them; ovary mostly superior with one to three styles or stigmas; fruit small, dry, with one seed, sometimes with a bladder-like covering. Spinach and Beets belong to this family; many are "weeds," such as Lamb's Quarters.

Wild Buckwheat—Eriogonum racemosum.
Alpine Smartweed—Polygonum bistortoides.

There are two kinds of Grayia, named after Asa Gray; low shrubs; the stamens and pistils in separate flowers, on the same or on different plants.

Hop Sage
Gràyia spinòsa
(G. polygaloides)
Greenish, with red bracts
Spring
Calif., Nev., Utah, Ariz.

An odd and beautiful desert shrub, about three feet high, very dense in form, with interlacing, angular, gray branches, spiny and crowded with small, alternate, toothless leaves, pale-green and thickish, but not stiff. The flowers are small and inconspicuous, but the pistillate ones are enveloped in conspicuous bracts, which enlarge and become papery in fruit, something like those of Docks, and often change from yellowish-green to all sorts of beautiful, bright, warm tints of pink, or to magenta, and the branches become loaded with beautifully shaded bunches of these curious seed-vessels, giving a strange, crowded look to the shrub, which in favorable situations, such as the Mohave Desert, makes splendid masses of color, especially when contrasted with the pale gray of Sage-brush.

There is only one kind of Cycloloma; leaves alternate, smooth or downy, irregularly toothed; flowers perfect or pistillate, with five sepals, five stamens, and two or three styles; fruit winged horizontally.

Tumbleweed
Cyclolòma atriplicifòlium
Purple or green
Summer
West of Mississippi River

Very curious round plants, six to twenty inches high, usually purple all over, sometimes green and rarely white, giving a brilliant effect in the fall to the sandy wastes they inhabit. They are a mass of interlacing branches, with hardly any leaves, except at the base, and very small flowers. When their seeds are ripe, and they are dry and brittle, the wind easily uproots them and starts them careening across the plain, their seeds flying out by the way. They turn over and over and leap along, as if they were alive, bringing up at last against a wire fence, or some such obstacle, where perhaps a traveler sees them from the train and wonders at the extraordinary-looking, dry, round bunches. There are other Tumble-weeds, such as Tumbling Mustard, Sisymbrium allissimum, and Amaránthus álbus, not of this family.

Hop Sage—Grayia polygaloides.

FOUR-O'CLOCK FAMILY. Nyctaginaceae.

A rather large family, widely distributed, most abundant in America. Ours are herbs, often succulent, with no stipules; stems often fragile, swollen at the joints; leaves opposite, usually toothless, often unequal; flowers perfect, with no petals, but the calyx colored like a corolla, with four or five lobes or teeth, and more or less funnel-shaped; one or several flowers in a cluster with an involucre; stamens three to five, with slender filaments; style one, with a round-top stigma; the green base of the calyx drawn down around the ovary, making it appear inferior, and hardening into a nutlike fruit; seeds sometimes winged.

Quamoclidions have the odd habit of opening in the afternoon, hence the common name, Four-o'clock. The flowers usually have five stamens, and are grouped several together in a cluster, which emerges from an involucre so much resembling a calyx that it is often mistaken for one. The effect is of the flowers having clubbed together and made one calyx do for the lot. The fruit is hard, smooth, and roundish.

Four-o'clock
Quamoclídion multiflòrum.
(Mirabilis)
Pink, purple
Spring
Southwest and Col.

The leaves of this low, stout, and spreading perennial are an inch or two long, light bluish-green, somewhat heart-shaped, rather rough and coarse, and the stems are often hairy and sticky. The foliage contrasts strikingly in color with the gaudy pink or magenta flowers, an inch across and slightly sweet-scented, the shape of Morning-glories and resembling them, as they have the same stripes of deeper color. The long stamens droop to one side, the pistil is long and purple and the bell-shaped involucre contains about six flowers. These plants are conspicuous and quite handsome. They grow on the plateau in the Grand Canyon.

There are several kinds of Hesperonia, much like Quamoclidion, but the bell-shaped involucre contains only one flower, which is also bell-shaped, usually with five separate stamens. The fruit is roundish, not angled or ribbed, usually smooth.

Four o'clock—Quamoclidion multiflorum.

California Four-o'clock
Hesperònia Califórnica
(Mirabilis)
Magenta, pink
Spring, summer
California

This is very common in southern California and forms quite large, low clumps of rather yellowish green, sticky and hairy foliage, sprinkled with numbers of bright little flowers, opening in the afternoon. The base is woody and the weak, hairy stems are supported on bushes, as if climbing over them. The leaves are rather thick, about an inch long, and the flowers are open bell-shaped, about three-quarters of an inch across, usually magenta, but often pink of various shades, sometimes quite pale in tint with long stamens drooping to one side, and the involucre is often purplish and very hairy and sticky. The effect at a distance is gay and attractive, though the plant is not quite so pretty close by.

Hesperònia glutinòsa var. grácilis
White, pinkish
Spring
Arizona

This has a straggling, hairy, sticky stem, over a foot long, and thickish, dull-green leaves, hairy and sticky. The flowers are about half an inch long, white or tinged with pink, and are rather delicate and pretty, though the plant is not especially attractive. It blooms at night, the flowers gradually closing with the morning sun. This variety is common in the southern part of the state, in mountain canyons, and Hesperonia glutinosa is common in the north.

There are several kinds of Abronia, all American, with branching, usually sticky-hairy stems, thick, toothless leaves, with leaf-stalks, in pairs and one of each pair somewhat larger than the other. The flowers are more or less salver-form, with five lobes, a threadlike style, and from three to five, unequal stamens, on the tube of the perianth and not protruding from it. They are numerous and in clusters, with involucres, on long flower-stalks, from the angles of the leaves. The fruit is winged. The name is from the Greek meaning graceful, but most of these plants are rather awkward in their manner of growth.

Hesperonia glutinosa var. gracilis.
California Four o'clock—H. Californica.

Sand Puffs
Abrònia sálsa
White
Spring, summer, Autumn
Utah

This plant is, as a whole, so delicately tinted and so decorative in form, that it is most attractive, particularly against the sandy soil where it grows, deserving the Greek name more than some of its slightly awkward sisters. It is about fourteen inches tall, with a stoutish, rather straggling, prostrate stem, which is pale, pinkish, sticky and fuzzy. The leaves have long leaf-stalks and are pale bluish-green, leathery and smooth, but fuzzy on the mid-vein of the under side, and the flowers are numerous, rather small, in handsome roundish clusters, which are about two inches across, with a papery, pinkish or yellowish involucre, of about five, separate, rounded bracts. The calyx is corolla-like and salver-form, with a long, yellowish or greenish tube and five lobes, prettily crinkled at the edges. The seed-vessel is very curious, resembling a round, yellowish sponge, with hooks sticking out of it, and the flowers are deliciously sweet-scented. This is sometimes called Snowball.

Pink Sand-Verbena
Abrònia villòsa
Pinkish-lilac
Summer
Ariz., Cal., Utah

The coloring of this plant, one of the prettiest of its kind, is striking and unusual, and makes it very conspicuous, growing in the sand near the sea or in the desert. The thickish leaves are light bluish-green and the thick stem, which straggles rather awkwardly over the ground, is a peculiar shade of pink and sticky and hairy, as are also the involucres. The small delicate flowers are an odd tint of pinkish-lilac, light but vivid, in striking contrast to the coloring of stems and foliage, and form very pretty clusters, with an involucre of five to fifteen papery bracts. They are very fragrant and look much like garden Verbenas, so the name is not so unhappy as some. A. umbellàta has slender stems and almost smooth leaves, sometimes with wavy margins, about an inch long, narrowed at base to a slender leaf-stalk, and deep-pink flowers. It is common all along the California coast and blooms in the summer and autumn. A. marítima is found from Santa Barbara to San Diego and is a very stout, coarse, sticky plant, with small, deep-magenta flowers.

Sand Verbena—Abronia villosa.

Sand Puffs—Abronia salsa.

Yellow Sand-Verbena
Abrònia latifòlia
Yellow
Spring, summer, autumn
Wash., Oreg., Cal.

Pretty at a distance, but rather coarse close by, a straggling plant, with long, thick, rubbery stems, lying on the ground, thickish leaves, and small yellow flowers, slightly fragrant and forming pretty clusters about an inch and a half across, with five bracts. This is common along the seashore, blooming more or less all through the year. It has a long, thick root, which is eaten by the Indians.

There are a good many kinds of Allionia, one Asiatic, the rest American. The bell-shaped flowers have unequal stamens, usually three, on the receptacle. The peculiar, five-lobed involucre, which becomes large and papery after flowering, contains from three to five flowers. The fruit is ribbed and often hairy. The shape of the involucre probably suggested the common name Umbrella-wort.

Narrow-leaved Umbrella-wort
Alliònia lineàris
Purple, pink, white
Summer
Utah, Ariz., etc.

A pretty plant, one to four feet tall, with a slender stem and long, narrow, bluish-green leaves, with somewhat wavy margins, and almost no leaf-stalks. The flowers are fragile and pretty, of various shades of pink, the shape of small Morning-glories, half an inch across, the stamens and style protruding. There are from three to five in a cluster, in a purple and green involucre. This involucre is curious, for before the flowers come out it is closed around a bunch of buds, looking as if it were itself a pretty five-angled bud, and one would not suspect that there were other little buds inside it. When the flowers bloom and drop, which they do very soon, this involucre unfolds and expands until it becomes an exceedingly thin, papery, five-lobed disk, three-quarters of an inch across, veined with purple, very pretty and delicate, looking like an odd little flower without a heart. The smooth stem forks towards the top and the branches, which are slightly hairy, bear numerous clusters of involucres with flowers inside them. This grows in dry soil, is widely distributed and found as far east as Illinois.

Involucre of Allionia linearis.
Yellow Sand Verbena—Abronia latifolia.

CARPET-WEED FAMILY. Aizoaceae.

Not a very large family, mostly natives of warm regions. Ours are branching herbs, lying mostly on the ground; leaves mostly opposite or in whorls; flowers perfect; sepals four or five; petals numerous, small or none; stamens few or many, usually on the calyx; ovary sometimes superior; fruit a capsule. In this country most of this family are dull little plants, with inconspicuous flowers.

There are many kinds of Mesembryanthemum, mostly African; ours are smooth, very succulent perennials; without stipules; leaves opposite; calyx-lobes unequal and leaf-like; petals long, narrow and very numerous, inserted with the innumerable stamens on the calyx-tube; ovary with ten or twelve styles, becoming a sort of berry, containing many minute seeds, and opening at the top in rainy weather. The terribly long name is from the Greek, meaning "noonday flower."

Ice-plant
Mesembryánthemum crystállinum
White, pinkish
Spring
California

One of the queerest looking plants that it is possible to imagine, the stout stems and large flat leaves thickly encrusted with millions of small translucent beads, resembling glass or ice and giving a glistening effect to the whole plant. They cluster especially thickly along the wavy margins and under sides of the leaves, and on the calyxes, and feel quite hard to the touch, but when they are crushed underfoot they exude a watery juice, which is said to be alkaline and injurious to shoe-leather. The stems and leaves are light bright-green, the tips and margins tinged with bright pinkish-red, especially on dry mesas, where this plant sometimes covers the ground for long distances with flat rosettes, forming a thick, red carpet, beautiful in color. In shadier, damper places, such as the crevices in the sea-cliffs at La Jolla, it becomes quite a large, tall plant, scarcely tinged with red and very glistening. The flowers are about an inch across, with a greenish center, surrounded by numerous, small, yellowish anthers and a single row of many, white or flesh-colored petals, suggesting the tentacles of a sea-anemone. In fact the whole plant is curiously suggestive of some low form of animal life. It is very troublesome to farmers in the south near the sea, and also flourishes in the Mohave Desert, in France and the Canary Islands.

Ice-plant—Mesembryanthemum crystallinum.

Sea Fig, Fig-marigold
Mesembryánthemum aequilateràle
Pink
Spring
California

A very strange and conspicuous plant, often clothing sandy slopes with a curious mantel of trailing, fleshy stems and foliage thickly sprinkled with thousands of gaudy flowers. The stems are stout and flattish, several feet long; the leaves three-sided, with flat faces, tipped with a small reddish point; the calyx-lobes three-sided like the leaves. The stems, leaves, and the calyx-lobes are all pale bluish-green with a "bloom" and exceedingly succulent, the watery juice running out in large drops when the plant is broken. The twigs seem to be fitted into a sort of socket, from which they come out very easily, so that the plant comes apart almost at a touch. The fragrant flowers are two or three inches across, bright but crude in color, the numerous, purplish-pink petals resembling the rays of a composite and encircling a fuzzy ring of innumerable stamens, with white, threadlike filaments and small, straw-colored anthers, around a dark-green center, composed of the top of the calyx and the six to ten styles of the ovary. This accommodating plant is very useful and ornamental in hot, sandy places, where not much else will grow, and may be seen hanging its long stems over the sea-cliffs all along the coast, from Patagonia to Marin County in California. It also grows in Africa and is extensively cultivated. The fruit is edible, with pulp and tiny seeds something like a fig.

Sea Fig—Mesembryanthemum aequilaterale.

PINK FAMILY. Caryophyllaceae.

A large family, widely distributed, most abundant in the northern hemisphere, including both the handsome Pinks and the insignificant Chickweeds. They are herbs, with regular, mostly perfect flowers, with four or five sepals; usually with four or five petals, sometimes with none; stamens as many, or twice as many, as the petals; ovary superior, one-celled; styles two to five in number; fruit a capsule, containing several or many, kidney-shaped seeds, opening by valves, or by teeth, at the top; leaves opposite, toothless; stems usually swollen at the joints. The name Pink comes from the petals of some kinds being cut into points, or "pinked."

There are numerous kinds of Arenaria, widely distributed, difficult to distinguish, with small, white flowers with five petals, usually not notched, ten stamens and usually three styles; leaves usually long and narrow, often stiff and growing in tufts; capsule roundish, splitting into usually three valves, each with two parts. These plants often grow in dry, sandy places, some at very high altitudes, some by the sea, hence the Latin name meaning "sandy," and the common one, Sandwort.

Fendler's Sandwort
Arenària Féndleri
White
Summer
Utah, Ariz., etc.

This has pretty little white flowers, about half an inch across, and is variable. Sometimes the stem is roughish, only three or four inches tall, springing from a tuft of small leaves, stiff and almost prickly. Sometimes the stem is smooth, six or eight inches tall, and the leaves resemble rather fine, stiff grass. This grows on dry hills and mountains, up to thirteen thousand feet, from Nebraska and Wyoming to Utah, Arizona, and New Mexico.

There are many kinds of Silene, widely distributed, more or less sticky plants, hence the common name, Catchfly; flowers mostly rather large; calyx inflated or tubular, with five teeth; petals five, with long claws, which often have scales at the top, forming a "crown"; stamens ten; styles usually three; capsule opening by three or six teeth at the tip; seeds numerous.

Sandwort—Arenaria Fendleri.

Moss Campion.
Cushion Pink
Silène acàulis
Purple
Summer
Alpine regions

An attractive little dwarf, living only in the high mountains. It has a long tap-root and many spreading stems, crowded with tiny, stiff, pointed, dark-green leaves, forming close tufts, from six to twenty inches across, resembling cushions of harsh moss and spangled all over with pretty little flowers. They are less than half an inch across with a bell-shaped calyx and five bright pinkish-purple petals, occasionally white, with a "crown" of small scales. We find this brave little plant crouching on bleak mountain tops, blossoming gayly at the edge of the snows that never melt, in arctic alpine regions across the world, up to a height of thirteen thousand feet. It is variable. There is a picture in Mrs. Henshaw's Mountain Wild Flowers of Canada.

Windmill Pink
Silène Ánglica
(S. Gallica)
White
Spring
Northwest, etc.

A rather inconspicuous "weed" from Europe, common in fields and along roadsides, with a slender, hairy stem, about a foot tall, and hairy leaves. The small flowers grow in a one-sided cluster and have a purplish calyx, sticky and hairy, and white or pinkish petals, with a small "crown," each petal twisted to one side like the sails of a windmill. This is widely distributed in nearly all warm temperate regions.

Indian Pink
Silène Califórnica
Red
Summer
Northwest

From six inches to over a foot tall, with a thick, perennial tap-root, one to two feet long, and branching, half-erect stems, both leaves and stems covered with fine down, the dull-green foliage contrasting well in color with the vivid vermilion of the gorgeous flowers. They are more than an inch across, the petals usually slashed into two broad lobes, flanked by two narrower, shorter points at the sides, the "crown" conspicuous. The flowers are even more brilliant in color than S. laciniata and are startlingly beautiful, glowing like coals of fire on the brown forest floor, in the open mountain woods they usually frequent. It is widely distributed in the Coast Ranges and Sierra Nevada Mountains, but nowhere very common. S. Hookeri has beautiful large pink flowers, often more than two inches across, sometimes white, and grows on shady hillsides in the Northwest, except in Idaho.

Windmill Pink—Silene Anglica.
Indian Pink—Silene Californica.

Indian Pink
Silène laciniàta
Red
Summer
California

This has handsome conspicuous flowers, clear vermilion or pinkish-scarlet in color, about an inch and a half across, with the five petals prettily slashed at the ends into four long divisions. Each petal has two little crests, which form a pretty "crown" in the throat of the corolla. The roughish, slender stems, from one to over two feet high, have several branches, the flowers growing two or three at the ends. The leaves are long, narrow, and rather rough and the whole plant is hairy and sticky. This is common around Pasadena and other places in southern California and is beautiful on Point Loma, where the brilliant flowers gleam among the underbrush like bits of flame. S. laciniàta var. Gréggii is common in Arizona and New Mexico.

Silène Lyalli
White
Summer
Northwest

Rather pretty, with a slender stem about a foot tall, smooth, bluish-green leaves, and flowers about three-quarters of an inch across; the calyx much inflated, yellowish-white and papery, with brownish veins, and the petals cream-color, with two lobes and a "crown."

There are a few kinds of Vaccaria, of Europe and Asia, smooth annuals, with clasping leaves and red or pink flowers in terminal clusters; calyx five-angled and inflated in fruit, five-toothed, without bracts; petals longer than the calyx, without appendages; stamens ten; styles two. Both the Latin and common names allude to the value of some kinds for fodder.

Cow-herb
Vaccària vaccària
(Saponaria)
Pink
Summer
Across the continent

Quite pretty, with a leafy, branching stem, from one to three feet tall, bluish-green leaves, and flowers less than an inch long, with a ribbed, yellowish-green calyx, with reddish teeth, and the petals a very pretty and unusual shade of deep, warm reddish-pink, veined with deeper color. This is a European "weed," common in waste places and cultivated fields.

Indian Pink—Silene laciniata.

Cow-herb—Vaccaria vaccaria.
Silene Lyalli.

There are many kinds of Alsine, widely distributed, low herbs, liking moist ground and shady places, with small, starry white flowers; with four or five sepals; four or five petals, deeply two-lobed or none; three to ten stamens and three to five styles; capsule roundish or oblong, rather shorter than that of Cerastium, splitting to below the middle, with twice as many valves as there are styles and many seeds. Many of these plants are weeds. They are often called Stitchwort. The Greek name means "grove," the home of some kinds.

Tall Chickweed
Alsìne lóngipes.
(Stellaria)
White
Summer
Northwest, Nev., Utah, etc.

An attractive little plant, with smooth stems, from six to fifteen inches tall, and pretty little flowers, less than half an inch across, growing singly, or in loose clusters, with white petals which are deeply two-lobed, so that they appear to be ten. The capsule is almost black when ripe. This is common in moist and grassy places in Yosemite and when growing in the shade is taller and more slender than in the open. It reaches an altitude of ten thousand feet and is found in the East and in Asia.

There are many kinds of Cerastium, abundant in the temperate zone, resembling Alsine, but usually downy and therefore called Mouse-ear Chickweeds. The flowers are white, usually with five sepals, five petals notched at the tips or with two lobes, ten or five stamens and five stigmas. The cylindrical capsule, often curved, splits at the top into ten teeth.

Field Chickweed
Cerástium arvénse
White
Spring, summer
U. S.

On the ledges moistened by the mist and spray that blow from the Yosemite waterfalls, among the glistening, wet grasses, these pretty little white flowers are quite conspicuous. They smell pleasantly of honey, measure about half an inch across, and have more or less downy stems, from five to ten inches tall. This is the prettiest Cerastium, though not so "mousy" as some, and grows in dry as well as moist situations.

Field Chickweed—Cerastium arvense.
Tall Chickweed—Alsine longipes.

PURSLANE FAMILY. Portulacaceae.

A rather small family, mostly American; herbs, usually with thick, succulent leaves and stems, with flowers opening only in sunlight. They usually have only two sepals, but the petals number from two to five or more; the stamens are sometimes numerous, but when they are of the same number as the petals they are opposite them; the one-celled ovary is superior, becoming a many-seeded capsule. Pusley, or Purslane, is one of the commonest garden weeds; everybody knows how difficult it is to keep the spreading rosettes out of gravel walks, and we are all familiar with the gaudy, ephemeral flowers of the cultivated Portulaca. The Purslane-tree, or Spek-boom, of South Africa is often the principal food of elephants and its foliage gives the characteristic coloring to the landscape.

There are several kinds of Montia, closely related to Claytonia, mostly natives of North America, rather succulent plants, very smooth and often with a "bloom." The flowers are white or pinkish, with two sepals; the five petals, equal or somewhat unequal, separate or more or less united at base; the stamens five or three; the style branches three; the capsule with three valves and one to three, shiny, black seeds, which when ripe are shot out of the capsule by the elastic closing of the valves.

Miner's Lettuce
Móntia parviflòra
White
Spring, summer
West, except Ariz.

The Indians gather these pretty succulent little plants for salad and indeed the tender, bright-green leaves look as if they would taste very nice. They grow in a loose bunch, with several stems, a few inches to a foot high. The root-leaves have long leaf-stalks and vary very much in size and shape, the earliest being long and narrow, like little green tongues, but the later ones oval, round and kidney-shaped, and they vary also in tint, in dry places being sometimes a dull yellowish-pink. The stem-leaves are quite odd, for a single pair have united around the stem and become a circular or somewhat two-lobed disk, one or two inches broad, the stalk piercing right through its center. This leaf forms a pretty, shallow saucer, with a small, loose cluster of tiny flowers, on slender flower-stalks, springing from the middle. This is common everywhere in orchards or vineyards, and in shady places in the foothills and canyons, and has long been cultivated in England for salad. It is also called Indian Lettuce and Squaw Cabbage. M. perfoliàta is similar.

Miner's Lettuce—Montia parviflora.

Spring Beauty
Móntia parvifòlia
White and pink
Spring
Northwest

This charming little flower resembles the Spring Beauty of the East, Claytonia Virginica, and blooms in late spring, among the ferns and wet grasses near the Yosemite waterfalls and in similar places. The white flowers, about three-quarters of an inch across, are often tinged with pink and the five stamens are violet. The tender stems, about eight inches tall, are weak and almost trailing and the pale-green leaves are smooth, the lower ones slightly thick and succulent, with little bulblets in the axils, which drop off in drying; the capsule mostly has only one seed.

There are several kinds of Claytonia, resembling Montia.

Spring Beauty
Claytònia lanceolàta
Pink and white
Spring
Northwest, Cal., Nev., and Utah

A pretty little plant, three or four inches high, with a juicy, reddish stem and thickish, bluish-green, juicy leaves, the root-leaf narrow, the two stem-leaves broader. The flowers, over half an inch across, are white, tinged and delicately veined with pink, with a little yellow at the base of the petals; the pistil and stamens pink; the two sepals yellowish-green. This grows on moist mountain slopes, up to an altitude of nine thousand feet, sometimes at the edge of the snow, is pretty and delicate and also resembles the eastern Spring Beauty.

Spring Beauties
Claytonia lanceolata.
Montia parvifolia.

There are only one or two kinds of Spraguea, natives of North America; low herbs, not very succulent, with fleshy roots; the leaves alternate, or from the root; the small flowers in coiled clusters; the two sepals and the four petals all papery; the stamens one, two, or three in number; the style long, with two stigmas; the capsule roundish, with two valves, containing few or many, shining, black seeds.

Pussy-paws
Spràguea umbellàta
(Calyptridium)
Pink
Summer, autumn
Northwest

Sandy spots in the mountains are often brightened by lovely patches of the soft pink blooms of this attractive and odd-looking little plant. Near Wawona, on the Glacier Point trail, I saw at least half an acre of sand carpeted with beautiful rose-color. In moderate altitudes the plants are about ten inches tall, but they get dwarfish as they climb and on the mountain-tops they are only an inch or so high, with close mats of small leaves. They have strong tap-roots and the leaves are dull gray-green, rather thick and stiff but hardly succulent, and grow mostly in rosettes at the base, those on the stem having shrunk to mere bracts, with several, smooth, reddish stalks springing from among them. Each stem bears a close, roundish head, two or three inches across, consisting of many tightly-coiled tufts of shaded pink, each composed of innumerable, small, pink flowers, the papery, pink and white sepals and bracts being the most conspicuous part. They overlap each other and have daintily ruffled edges. The three stamens are long and protruding and the style long and threadlike. The flower-clusters are like soft pink cushions, so the pretty little name of Pussy-paws is appropriate, both to form and coloring. Chipmunks are very fond of the small, black seeds.

Pussy-paws—Spraguea umbellata.

BUTTERCUP FAMILY. Ranunculaceae.

The members of this large and handsome family vary so much in appearance that it is difficult for the amateur to realize that they are nearly related. In fact they have no very distinctive characteristics. They are all herbs, except Clematis, which is shrubby, and all have bitter juice, which is never milky or colored, numerous stamens and usually several pistils, which are superior and one-celled, bearing a single style, and all the parts of the flower are separate from each other and inserted on the receptacle. The flowers are often of eccentric forms, with spurs or hoods; sometimes they dispense with petals altogether and instead have colored sepals which resemble petals. The leaves are of all sorts and shapes, usually more or less lobed and cut, but have no stipules and often their bases clasp the stem. The fruit is an akene, pod, or berry. Many of our most beautiful and popular garden flowers are included in this family, which is large and distributed throughout the world, but not abundant in the tropics.

There are numerous kinds of Ranunculus, mostly perennials, with fibrous roots, growing in temperate and cold regions. Ours have yellow or white flowers, with three to five sepals and from three to fifteen petals, each of the petals with a nectar-gland at its base; the numerous pistils developing into a roundish or oblong head of akenes. The leaves are variously cut and lobed, the stem leaves alternate. Some sorts grow in the water and some have creeping stems. Some kinds of Ranunculus are liable to be confused with some sorts of Cinquefoils, but the calyx of a Buttercup has no bractlets, as has that of a Cinquefoil. The Latin name means "little frog," as these plants like marshes.

Common Western Buttercup
Ranúnculus Califórnicus
Yellow
Winter, spring
Wash., Oreg., Cal.

The commonest kind are attractive, often coloring the fields for miles with bright gold, but the flowers are not so pretty as some common eastern kinds. The stems are branching and more or less hairy, nine inches to a foot and a half tall, with dark-green leaves, smooth, hairy or velvety, and velvety, hairy buds. The flowers are about an inch across, with from nine to sixteen, bright-yellow, shiny petals and pale-green sepals, turned closely back. The akenes have hooked beaks. This runs into many scarcely distinguishable varieties.

Common Western Buttercup—Ranunculus Californicus.

Few flowers are more beautiful and interesting in color and construction than Larkspurs. We are all familiar with their tall spires of oddly-shaped blossoms, growing in gardens, and we find them even more charming in their natural surroundings, glowing like sapphires on desert sands, or adorning mountain woods with patches of vivid color. There are many kinds; ours are perennials, with palmately-divided leaves and usually blue or white flowers, very irregular in form, with five sepals, resembling petals, the upper one prolonged into a spur at the back, and usually four petals, two of which are small and inside the calyx-spur, the larger two partly covering the pistils and the numerous stamens. The pistils, from one to five, become many-seeded pods. Some Larkspurs are poisonous to cattle. The Latin name is from a fancied resemblance of the flower to the dolphin of decorative art. Spanish Californians call it Espuela del caballero, Cavalier's spur.

Blue Larkspur
Delphínium scapòsum
Blue
Summer
Ariz., New Mex.

Though sometimes rather small, this is extremely pretty. In the Grand Canyon, on the plateau, it is about a foot tall, with rather leathery, brownish-green leaves, mostly from the root, and from five to twelve flowers in a cluster. They measure nearly an inch across and are brilliant and iridescent in coloring, as except for two small whitish petals, they are the deepest, brightest blue, exquisitely tinted with violet, with brown anthers. At Tucson, among the rocks above the Desert Laboratory, it grows to over a foot in height, with a cluster over six inches long and light dull-green leaves, slightly stiff and thick, with long leaf-stalks, the lobes tipped with a bristle, forming a handsome clump. This grows on dry plains and rocky hillsides, up to seven thousand feet. The picture is from a Grand Canyon plant.

Larkspur
Delphínium Hánseni
White, pinkish
Summer
California

If the flowers were a little less pale in color this would be a gorgeous plant, for it sometimes grows nearly four feet high. The branching stem springs from a cluster of thick, tapering roots, each branch terminating in a long, crowded cluster of twenty or thirty flowers, opalescent in tint, either white, with a bluish or greenish spot on the tip of each sepal, or very pale pink, with a purplish or bluish spot. The dull, yellowish-green leaves are rather thickish and downy, the pods erect. This grows in dryish places, at moderate altitudes, and freely around Yosemite.

Foothills Larkspur—Delphinium scaposum.

Larkspur—Delphinium Hanseni.

Blue Larkspur
Delphínium bícolor
Blue
Spring, summer
Northwest and Utah

A splendid flower when at its best, from six inches to a foot and a half tall, with a smooth stem, reddish below, and smooth, bright-green leaves, pale on the under side, round in general outline, the lower ones with long, reddish leaf-stalks sheathing the stem, the roots thick but not tuberous. The beautiful flowers are sometimes an inch and a half across, on long, rather spreading pedicels, few or many, in a long loose cluster, the buds slightly downy. The general effect of the flowers is deep bright-blue, but when we examine them more closely we find that the slightly woolly spurs are purplish, the blue sepals have on the back protuberances, which are pinkish on the front and greenish on the back, the two, small, upper petals are white, delicately striped with purple, and the lower ones, which are fuzzy with tufts of white down and two-cleft, are deep pinkish-purple; sometimes the whole flower is much paler in color. The anthers are large and green at first, becoming small and yellow, their threadlike filaments curling. This grows on dry hills. D. Párryi, of California, is about two feet tall, similar in coloring, but even handsomer, with a cluster nearly a foot long, closely crowded with beautiful flowers, each an inch and a half across. The lower leaves are slashed nearly to the center, into seven divisions, each with three, long, narrow lobes.

Blue Larkspur—Delphinium bicolor.

Sacramento Larkspur
Delphínium variegàtum
Purple
Spring, summer
California

Very handsome, over a foot tall, the upper stem downy, the lower more or less hairy and the leaves more or less velvety. The flowers are an inch or more long and rather few, with long pedicels, forming a loose cluster. They are downy on the outside, all bright-purple, except the two upper petals, which are white tipped with purple, the lower petals edged and tipped with hairs, the spur stoutish and wrinkled. These flowers, though described as blue, seem to me to have more true purple than most Larkspurs. They probably vary a good deal in color. This grows in the Coast Ranges and the Sacramento Valley. There are many similar blue Larkspurs.

Scarlet Larkspur, Christmas-horns
Delphínium nudicaùle
Red
Spring
Wash., Oreg., Cal.

Scarlet seems an odd color for a Larkspur, but there are two red ones in the West. This is an exceedingly airy, graceful plant and suggests a Columbine more than a Larkspur. The stem is slender and branching, from one to over two feet tall, with a "bloom"; the leaves thickish, smooth, dark rich green on the upper side and pale on the under. The flowers are far apart, from two to twelve, on long pedicels, forming a very loose, open cluster. Each flower is about an inch long; the sepals scarlet shading to yellow, the spur tipped with deeper red, the petals yellow tipped with crimson, not woolly, the two upper notched and much larger than the two lower ones, which are small and slashed into two points, the edges of both sepals and petals more or less hairy; the buds pale yellowish-green, tinged with pink and red. These charming flowers have an elfin look all their own, as they swing their little pointed red caps in the light shade of cool canyons along the mountain streams they love. In southern California we find D. cardinàle, a handsomer plant, sometimes six feet tall, its flowers larger and deeper red and forming a larger, closer cluster.

Scarlet Larkspur—Delphinium nudicaule.

The picturesque Columbine gets its melodious name from the Latin for "dove," because the spurs suggest a circle of pretty little pigeons, and this common name is less far-fetched than the Latin one, Aquilegia, which comes from a fancied resemblance of the spurs to an eagle's claws. These plants are well known and easily recognized by the peculiar shape of the flowers. Everything about them is decorative and beautiful, the foliage is pretty and the flowers large, brightly colored, and conspicuous. They are all perennials, with branching stems and compound leaves; the flowers usually nodding, with five sepals all alike and resembling petals, and five petals, also all alike, with conspicuous, hollow spurs. The stamens, the inner ones without anthers, are numerous and the five pistils develop into a head of five, erect, many-seeded pods. There is honey in the spurs, which can be reached only by "long-tongued" insects or humming birds, which thus assist in cross-pollination, and bees obviate the difficulty of having short tongues by ingeniously cutting holes in the spurs. There are a good many beautiful kinds, both East and West.

Scarlet Columbine
Aquilègia truncàta
Red and yellow
Spring
Wash., Oreg., Cal.

This charming plant grows from one to over three feet high, is branching and smooth, and has pretty light-green leaves and nodding flowers, which are over an inch and a half across. The outside of the corolla is pale-scarlet, veined and tipped with yellow, the inside is yellow and the spurs are erect and three quarters of an inch long. The flower resembles the Scarlet Columbine of the East, but the plant is taller, with fewer flowers. It is common in moist, rich woods in Yosemite and the Coast Ranges, from the foothills well up to the alpine zone.

White Columbine
Aquilègia leptocèra
White
Summer
Northwest and Utah

An exceedingly beautiful flower, a white sister of the large Blue Columbine, which is the "State flower" of Colorado, and sometimes sufficiently tinged with blue to show the relationship. It is a rather slender plant, usually with several stems, from one to two feet tall, the foliage rather bluish-green, the flowers large and usually pure-white, and is found in the mountains.

Scarlet Columbine—Aquilegia truncata.

Monkshoods have almost as much charm as their cousins Columbine and Larkspur, with a quaintness and individuality all their own. There are a good many kinds; mountain plants, growing in temperate regions, with rather weak stems and leaves much like those of Larkspur. The blue and white blossoms have a "hood," which gives these plants their very appropriate name. This is formed by the upper and larger one of the five, petal-like sepals arching over and forming a hood, or helmet, under which the two small petals, with spurs and claws, are hidden; sometimes there are three or more petals below, which are minute and resemble stamens. The real stamens are numerous and ripen before the pistils, thus ensuring cross-pollination, and the fruit consists of a head, of from three to five, many-seeded pods. The thick or turnip-shaped root is used medicinally and is virulently poisonous, so these plants are sometimes called Wolfsbane. Aconite is the ancient Greek name and other common names are Blue-weed and Friar's-cap.

Monkshood
Aconìtum Columbiànum
Blue and white
Summer
West

This handsome perennial, from two to six feet tall, grows near streams, in mountain meadows or open woods. The flowers measure from half an inch to over an inch long and are mostly bright-blue and white, tinged with violet, but shade from almost white to deep-blue, veined with purple. They are paler inside and grow on slender pedicels, in a long loose cluster, on a somewhat bending stem. The two, small, hammer-shaped petals are nearly concealed under the hood. The leaves are alternate, the lower ones with long leaf-stalks, and deeply cleft into three or five, toothed or lobed, divisions. This reaches an altitude of twelve thousand feet.

Monkshood—Aconitum Columbianum.

Wild Peony
Paeònia Bròwnii
Dark-red
Winter, spring
Wash., Oreg., Cal.

There are two kinds of Peony. This is a robust and very decorative perennial, rich and unusual in coloring, the fine foliage setting off the dark flowers to perfection. The roots are woody, the stems smooth, from eight inches to a foot and a half tall, and the leaves are smooth, rich green, but not shiny. The nodding flowers are an inch and a half across, with five or six greenish-purple sepals, five or six petals, rich deep-red, tinged and streaked with yellow and maroon; dull-yellow stamens and green pistils. The whole flower is quite thick and leathery in texture and rather coarse, sometimes so dark that it is almost black. The flowers are often fragrant, but the plant has a disagreeable smell, something like Skunk-cabbage, when crushed. The large seed-pods, usually five, are thick, leathery and smooth, with several seeds and are a very conspicuous feature, the stems drooping as they ripen and the pods resting on the ground in big bunches. The whole plant is rather succulent and the foliage and stems are more or less tinged with red and have a "bloom," especially on the sepals. This grows in all sorts of places, in the hot plains of the south and at the edge of the snow, in northern, mountain canyons. In the south it blooms in January and is sometimes called Christmas-rose. The root is used medicinally by the Spanish-Californians and by the Indians, "to give their horses long wind." These plants were named in honor of Paion, the physician of the gods.

Wild Peony—Paeonia Brownii.

There are only a few kinds of Actaea, tall perennials, with large, alternate, thrice-compound leaves and small, white flowers, in short, terminal clusters. The sepals number about four and resemble petals; the petals are from four to ten, or sometimes none, with claws; the stamens are numerous, with conspicuous white filaments; the one pistil has a broad, somewhat two-lobed, stigma, and the fruit is a large, showy, red or white, somewhat poisonous berry, containing many, smooth, flat seeds.

Baneberry
Actaèa argùta
White
Spring, summer
West, except Ariz.

This is a fine plant, from one to two feet tall, with a stoutish, smooth, branching stem and handsome leaves, prettily cut, with pointed teeth, thin and soft in texture, with conspicuous veins. The sepals and petals of the small cream-white flowers are less conspicuous than the numerous white stamens, which give a very feathery appearance to the flower-cluster, which is one or two inches long and speckled with the dark tips of the pistils. The sepals and petals drop off early and the stamens lengthen, so that the cluster becomes very airy and delicate. The general effect of the plant, which grows near shady mountain streams, is striking and graceful. It grows also in the East and is sometimes slightly sweet-scented, but often has an unpleasant smell. The handsome, poisonous berries are oval or round, red or white, with a polished surface, and contain many seeds. This reaches an altitude of ten thousand feet. A very similar kind, A. viridiflòra, grows in the mountains of Arizona.

Baneberry—Actaea arguta.

Globe-flower
Tróllius láxus
White
Spring
U. S.

This is our only kind of Trollius. It is an exceedingly beautiful flower, particularly when found growing in the snow, or near the edge of a field of melting ice, in high mountains and along the margins of glaciers. The handsome, toothed leaves are palmately-lobed or divided, the lower ones with long leaf-stalks, rich green and glossy and setting off the flowers, which grow singly at the tips of smooth, rather weak stems, from one to two feet tall, and measure about an inch and a half across. The sepals, from five to seven in number, are large, cream-white, slightly greenish outside, and are the conspicuous part of the flower, for the petals are very small and yellow, so that they resemble stamens. From fifteen to twenty-five of these little petals, in a row, surround the numerous, real stamens and form a beautiful golden center. The fruit is a head, measuring an inch across, composed of eight to fifteen small pods, with beaks, containing many, smooth, oblong seeds. This plant looks very much like an Anemone but it has these small yellow petals and Anemones have none, and the center is larger and brighter yellow and the foliage coarser.

There are three kinds of Trautvetteria, two American and one Asiatic.

False Bugbane
Trautvettèria grándis
White
Summer
West

A handsome plant, with a smooth, pale-green stem, from two to three feet tall, and fine large leaves, prettily cut, smooth and rather bright green, the lower ones sometimes eight inches across. The white flower clusters are large, very pretty, airy and feathery, consisting of numerous small flowers, with small petal-like sepals, usually four, and no petals, the numerous stamens, with white filaments, being the conspicuous part and forming a little pompon. The akenes are numerous, inflated and four-angled, and form a head. It is a pity that this attractive plant has such a horrid name. It grows in moist woods at Mt. Rainier and in similar places.

False Bugbane—Trautvetteria grandis.

Anemones grow in temperate and cold regions everywhere. They have no petals, but their sepals, numbering from four to twenty, resemble petals. The stem-leaves are in whorls, forming a kind of involucre below the flower. There are many kinds; some have nearly smooth, pointed akenes, some densely woolly ones, and in some the akenes have feathery tails. The name, pronounced anemòne in Latin and in English anémone, is appropriate to the fragile kinds, such as the eastern Wood Anemone, for it means "flower shaken by the wind."

Canyon Anemone
Anemòne sphenophýlla
White
Spring
Arizona

An attractive plant, eight inches to a foot tall, with pretty flowers and foliage. The flowers are white, tinged with pink, less than an inch across, often downy outside, and the head of fruit is oblong, sleek, and silky downy. This grows on dry, rocky slopes in the Grand Canyon, above the plateau. Around Tucson the flowers are less pretty, but the foliage handsomer.

Three-leaved Anemone
Anemòne deltoìdea
White
Summer
Wash., Oreg., Col.

Delicate, pale flowers, conspicuous in dark mountain woods, with slightly downy, purplish stems, from eight to ten inches tall, and pretty leaves, thin in texture, the involucre-leaves without leaf-stalks, rather light-green, dull on the upper side, paler and shiny on the under. The pretty flowers are an inch and a half to over two inches across, with five, pure-white sepals, usually two of them larger and longer than the others, and a light bright-yellow center. This is abundant at Mt. Rainier. A. quinquefòlia var. Gràyi, of the Coast Ranges, is similar, the flower often tinged with blue, the involucre-leaves with leaf-stalks.

Northern Anemone
Anemòne parviflòra
White
Summer
Northwest

A pretty little plant, with a rather hairy, reddish stem, from four to twelve inches tall, glossy, dark-green leaves, paler and downy on the under side, and flowers about half an inch across, cream-white, tinged with purple or blue on the outside; the akenes very woolly. This reaches an altitude of ten thousand five hundred feet, growing in the East and in Asia and is the smallest of the mountain Anemones.

Northern Anemone—A. parviflora.
Three-leaved Anemone—A. deltoidea.
Canyon Anemone—A. sphenophylla.

Western Anemone
Anemòne occidentàlis
White
Spring
Northwest

These beautiful mountain flowers bloom in early spring, sometimes poking their pretty faces right through a hole melted in a snow-bank, and the brave little things are quite thickly covered with silky wool all over, as if to keep themselves warm. The flowers, which often bloom before the leaves expand, are about two inches across, with five to eight, cream-white sepals, tinged with blue and hairy on the outside, and are much less delicate looking than most Anemones. The stout stems are very woolly, from six to eighteen inches tall, and the leaves are beautiful, cut into numerous, very fine divisions, exceedingly feathery and pretty. The akenes have long, feathery tails and form very large, silky, fluffy heads, which are very handsome and conspicuous.

There are a good many kinds of Caltha, succulent marsh plants, of temperate and arctic regions; the leaves undivided, mostly from the base and more or less heart-shaped; the flowers with large, petal-like sepals and no petals. This is the Latin name of the Marigold.

White Marsh Marigold
Cáltha leptosépala
White
Summer
Northwest

A pretty little mountain, marsh plant with a smooth, stout, purplish stem from four to eight inches tall, and smooth, light-green leaves, often veined with purple on the under side. The flowers are an inch and a quarter across, with eight or ten, cream-white sepals, tinged with blue on the outside, and pretty golden centers of numerous stamens. This blooms at the edge of the retreating snow and reaches an altitude of twelve thousand feet. C. palústris, the Yellow Marsh Marigold, found in the Northwest and common in the East, has beautiful yellow flowers, resembling large Buttercups.

Western Anemone—Anemone occidentalis.
White Marsh Marigold—Caltha leptosepala.

There are many varieties of Clematis, or Virgin's Bower, familiar to us all, both East and West, and general favorites, widely distributed and flourishing in temperate regions; perennials, woody below, which is unusual in this family. Usually they are beautiful trailing vines, which climb over bushes and rocks, holding on by their twisting, curling leaf-stalks. The flowers have no petals, or only very small ones, but their sepals, usually four, resemble petals; the stamens are numerous. The numerous pistils form a round bunch of akenes, their styles developing into long feathery tails, and these gray, plumy heads are very conspicuous and ornamental, when the flowers are gone. The leaves are opposite, which is unusual in this family, with slender leaf-stalks, and are usually compound. Some plants have only staminate flowers and some only pistillate ones, and the appearance is quite different, the flowers with stamens being handsomer.

Virgin's Bower, Pipe-stem
Clématis lasiántha
White, pale-yellow
Spring
California

Near the summit of Mt. Lowe, and in similar places, we find this beautiful vine clambering over the rocks. The flowers measure an inch and a quarter to over two inches across and they vary in tint from almost pure white to a lovely soft shade of pale-yellow, the handsome clusters forming a beautiful contrast to the dark-green foliage. The stamens and pistils are on different plants. The flowers, leaves, and stems are all more or less velvety and the akenes have tails an inch long, forming a head, about two inches across. The flowers are often so numerous as to make conspicuous masses of pale color on canyon sides, in the Coast Range and Sierra Nevada Mountains.

Virgin's Bower—Clematis lasiantha.

There are a few kinds of Atragene, resembling Clematis.

Purple Clematis
Atrágene occidentàlis (Clematis)
Violet, blue
Summer
West

This is peculiarly attractive, as the flowers are large and beautiful and the foliage very pretty. The leaves are divided into three, pointed leaflets, which are thin in texture, light bright-green and prettily cut or lobed, and the trailing or climbing stems are almost smooth, slender and purplish above and woody below. The flowers, which are not in clusters, measure from two to three inches across, with four, sometimes five, violet or blue sepals, spreading widely as the flower grows older, and the outer stamens are broad and resemble small petals. The flowers are followed by handsome feathery heads, which are large and silky. This pretty vine is found in the Grand Canyon, not far below the Rim, and in many mountain places. The foliage varies somewhat in different climates.

There are many kinds of Thalictrum, not easily distinguished, widely distributed, a few in the Andes, India, and Africa; perennials, with tall stems, from a short rootstock, and handsome, compound leaves; the flowers perfect or imperfect, many, small, in clusters, with four to seven sepals and no petals; the akenes tipped with the long styles and forming a head. Some of these plants have a disagreeable smell. They grow in moist places, both East and West.

Meadow Rue
Thalíctrum Féndleri
Greenish-white
Summer
West

Though its flowers are small and colorless, this plant is conspicuous for delicacy and grace. The leaves of tender green suggest the fronds of Maidenhair Fern and are almost as beautiful, while the flowers are odd and pretty. A shower of numerous, pale-yellow stamens, with purplish, threadlike filaments, falls from the center of four, greenish-white sepals and forms a charming little tassel. These tassels hang on the ends of very slender pedicels, in loose clusters. The smooth stems are from one to three feet tall and the smooth leaves are thin in texture, thrice-compound, with many, rounded leaflets, the lower leaves with long leaf-stalks. This Meadow Rue has its pistils and stamens on different plants, the flowers with tassels of stamens being prettier and more conspicuous than the small, green, pistillate ones. The variety Wrìghtii is common in Arizona.

Lilac Clematis—Atragene occidentalis.

Meadow Rue—Thalictrum Fendleri.

BARBERRY FAMILY. Berberidaceae.

Not a large family, widely distributed; shrubs or herbs; leaves alternate or from the root; flowers perfect; sepals and petals few, many, or none, generally in several overlapping rows; stamens on the receptacle, usually as many as the petals and opposite them; pistil one, with a short style, or none; fruit a berry or capsule.

There are several kinds of Vancouveria, perennial herbs with slender, creeping rootstocks; named after Vancouver the explorer.

Inside-out Flower, Barrenwort
Vancouvèria parviflòra
White, lilac
Spring
Wash., Oreg., Cal.

A charming woodland plant, its airy flower cluster, which has much the effect of an Alum-root, in beautiful contrast to the crisp, evergreen foliage. The large leaves are all from the root, with wiry, purplish leaf-stalks and beautifully-shaped leaflets, each an inch or more broad, pale on the under side, the older leaves dark, rich green, leathery and very glossy and the younger ones bright apple-green and thinner in texture. They form a handsome cluster, varying a good deal in size, and the general effect suggests some very crisp and sturdy sort of Maidenhair Fern. The stem is from one to two feet tall, wiry, purplish, and hairy, and bears a very loose cluster of tiny, drooping, white or lilac-tinged flowers. The six, white sepals resemble petals; the six, white petals are smaller than the sepals, lined with yellow, and there are six to nine bracts, resembling sepals, and six stamens. The minute buds are purplish and the little flowers are exceedingly pretty and odd, when we examine them closely, for the sepals turn back so abruptly from the tiny petals, and from the projecting cluster of stamens, that the name Inside-out Flower is appropriate. The fruit is a kind of capsule with many seeds. This grows in shady woods, especially among redwoods, up to seven thousand feet. V. hexándra has thinner leaflets, not evergreen, and the leaflets of V. chrysántha have white margins.

Inside-out Flower—Vancouveria parviflora.

There are many kinds of Barberry, widely distributed; shrubs, with yellow wood; the leaves often spiny and the flowers yellow; the sepals six to nine, with bracts and resembling petals; the petals six, in two overlapping rows, each with two glands at the base; the stamens six, with anthers that open by little valves like trap-doors, hinged at the top, sensitive and, when they are touched, closing around the shield-shaped stigma; the fruit a berry, with one or few seeds.

Oregon Grape, Trailing Barberry
Bérberis rèpens
Yellow
Spring
Cal., Ariz., Utah, Nev.

This does not look much like the common cultivated kinds of Barberry, for it grows close to the ground in a straggling bunch. In favorable situations it is a handsome and conspicuous plant. The leaves, with from three to seven leaflets, are stiff, prickly, and evergreen like Holly, and the yellow flowers are in clusters at the ends of the stems, with opposite bracts. The six sepals, petals, and stamens are all opposite, that is, with a petal in front of each sepal and a stamen in front of each petal. In Arizona the flowers are rather small and the clusters short, but in Utah they are far handsomer, rich golden-yellow and sweet-scented, forming clusters two inches long. The fruit is a handsome blue berry with a "bloom," the color of wild grapes, contrasting well with the foliage when it turns red in the autumn, and delicious jelly is made from them. B. aquifòlium, of Oregon and Washington, is similar, with much more beautiful, very shining leaves. B. Féndleri, of the Southwest, is from three to six feet high, the branches smooth and shiny as if varnished, the leaves with smooth edges or spiny teeth, and the flowers in numerous drooping clusters. The calyx has conspicuous, red bracts and the berry is red.

Oregon Grape—Berberis repens.

Sweet-after-Death
Áchlys triphýlla
White
Summer
Wash., Oreg., Cal.

The only kind, an attractive perennial, popular on account of its sweet-smelling foliage, which, however, is not fragrant until the leaves are dried. It has a very slender rootstock and only one large leaf, with a very long, slender leaf-stalk and three, oddly-shaped leaflets, from two to six inches across, bright-green, smooth and thin in texture, but not glossy. The single, very slender flower-stalk, from one to two feet tall, bears a crowded spike of many, tiny, scentless, white flowers, without either calyx or corolla, but consisting of a cluster of stamens, with long, threadlike filaments, the outer ones broader, and a pistil with a broad stigma and no style. The effect of the cluster is feathery and pretty and the broad leaf is very conspicuous, on account of its size and shape. The crescent-shaped fruit contains one seed, is at first fleshy, but becomes dry and leathery. This grows in the woods in the Coast Ranges, from near sea-level up to seven thousand feet. It is also called Vanilla Leaf and Deer-foot.

WATER LILY FAMILY. Nymphaeaceae.

A small family, widely distributed in fresh-water lakes and streams; aquatic, perennial herbs, with thick, horizontal rootstocks, or with tubers, large, floating, or erect leaves, and large, solitary flowers, with long flower-stalks; sepals three to twelve; petals three to many; stamens six to numerous; ovary superior, stigmas distinct or united into a disk. We have no white Water Lilies in the West.

Indian Pond Lily, Spatter-dock
Nymphaèa polysépala (Nuphar)
Yellow
Summer
Cal., Oreg., Wash., Col., Wyo.

Like the eastern Spatter-dock, this is a coarse, but rather handsome and decorative plant. The leathery leaves are shaped like a rounded heart and sometimes a foot long. The cup-shaped calyx, two to four inches across, is the conspicuous part of the flower, consisting of seven to twelve, thickish sepals, yellow and petal-like, the outer greenish. There are twelve to eighteen petals, half an inch long, resembling stamens. The real stamens have dark-red anthers, but yellow pollen, and both petals and stamens are densely crowded around the ovary. The round fruit has a narrow neck, concave top, and many seeds. In quiet mountain ponds we find these yellow flowers, on stout stems standing up out of the water, the lily-pads floating idly on its surface. Indians grind the seeds into meal for porridge, or else roast them and eat them like popcorn.

Sweet-after-Death—Achlys triphylla.

STRAWBERRY SHRUB FAMILY. Calycanthaceae.

A very small family, of only two genera, one North American, one Japanese; aromatic shrubs, with opposite, toothless leaves, with short leaf-stalks, without stipules; flowers large, solitary, at the ends of leafy branches; sepals, petals, and stamens, indefinite in number, in many, overlapping series, passing one into the other, so that one cannot tell which is which, and all borne on the receptacle, which is hollow, resembling a rose-hip, almost enclosing the numerous pistils; stamens short, the inner ones without anthers; receptacle becoming a large, leathery, oblong or pear-shaped fruit, containing few or many, smooth, shining akenes.

There are three kinds of Calycanthus in this country, two of them eastern; flowers purple or red, stamens inserted in several rows.

Strawberry Shrub
Calycánthus occidentàlis
Red
Summer
California

This resembles the familiar shrub of old-fashioned gardens and the flowers have the same pleasant and elusive aroma, something like strawberries, much more spicy when crushed. The shrub is four to ten feet high, with rather coarse, harsh foliage and large, handsome flowers, two or three inches across, warm maroon in color, shading to brown and purple, with yellow stamens. This is handsome and conspicuous, because of the uncommon and rich coloring of its flowers, and grows along watercourses in the canyons of the foothills and is most common in northern California. It has many other names, such as Sweet Shrub, Carolina Allspice, Wineflowers, etc.

Strawberry Shrub—Calycanthus occidentalis.

POPPY FAMILY. Papaveraceae.

A rather large family, widely distributed, most abundant in the north temperate zone; herbs, rarely shrubs, with milky, mostly yellow juice and narcotic or acrid properties; the leaves mostly alternate, without stipules; the parts of the flower usually all separate and distinct, borne on a top-shaped receptacle. There are usually two sepals, which fall off when the blossom opens, and usually four petals, overlapping and crumpled in the bud; the stamens are usually numerous and conspicuous, with thread-like filaments; the superior ovary becomes a many-seeded capsule.

There are only two kinds of Romneya, much alike, smooth, stout, perennial herbs, several feet high, with colorless sap, the leaves alternate and more or less divided; three sepals, each with a broad wing on the back; six, large, white petals; many stamens; the ovary covered with bristles. These plants are nowhere common, but are found from Santa Barbara south, and in lower California sometimes grow in great profusion. They are extensively cultivated and much admired abroad.

Matilija Poppy, Giant Poppy
Romnèya trichocàlyx
White
Summer
California

This is often considered the handsomest flower in the West and it would be hard to find anything more beautiful and striking than its magnificent blossoms. The plant has somewhat the effect of a Peony-bush, sometimes, in cultivation, as much as five feet high, with many smooth stems and handsome, smooth, light-green foliage, the leaves cut and lobed, those near the top with a few prickles. The splendid flowers are enormous, from five to nine inches across, with diaphanous, white petals, crinkled like crêpe tissue-paper, and bright golden centers, composed of hundreds of yellow stamens surrounding a greenish-white pistil. The blossoms remain open for several days. The hard, round buds are covered with short, brown hairs. This is the true Matilija Poppy, (pronounced Matíliha,) as it is the kind that grows in the canyon of that name, but the tremendous floods of 1914 drowned most of these beautiful plants in that locality. R. Còulteri is similar, but the buds are smooth and the stems more robust.

Matilija Poppy—Romneya trichocalyx.

There are several kinds of Argemone, natives of the warmer parts of America, with bitter, yellow juice, spiny-toothed leaves and large, conspicuous flowers, the buds erect; sepals two or three, with odd little horns; petals twice as many as the sepals; stamens numerous; style very short, with a radiate stigma; capsule prickly, oblong, opening at the top, containing numerous seeds.

Thistle Poppy, Milk Thistle
Argemòne híspida
White
Summer
Southwest

The prickly, bluish-green foliage of this decorative and handsome plant is thistle-like both in form and color. The leafy, branching stems, two or three feet high, are covered with dense, white or yellowish prickles and bear several lovely flowers, over three inches across, with delicately crumpled, white petals and beautiful golden centers, composed of numerous yellow stamens, both stem and leaves having a bluish "bloom." The three prickly green sepals each have a spine-like beak and form a queer-looking, three-horned bud; the pistil has a purplish, cap-shaped stigma, with six lobes, and the prickly ovary becomes a very prickly capsule. This grows in dry places and looks very beautiful and striking when we find its fragile flowers waving in the wind against a background of hot desert sand. It varies a good deal in prickliness and in the form both of plant and flower. When there is only one large flower in bloom, surrounded by a circle of prickly buds, it suggests a fairy princess, guarded by a retinue of fierce warriors. The flowers are often quite broad and flat, and then are sometimes given the prosaic name of Fried-eggs.

There are many kinds of Papaver; with milky juice, leaves lobed or cut, nodding flower buds, showy regular flowers, with two or three sepals and four to six petals. The stigmas are united to form a disk with rays and the fruit is a round or oblong capsule, opening near the top. Both the Latin and common name, Poppy, are ancient. Opium is made from P. somníferum of the Mediterranean.

Thistle Poppy—Argemone hispida.

Wind Poppy
Papàver heterophýllum
Red
Spring
California

A slender, graceful plant, one or two feet tall, with smooth, branching, purplish stems, smooth leaves, variously cut and lobed, and charming flowers, gay yet delicate. They are about an inch and a half across, usually with four, scarlet petals, each with a spot of maroon at the base, and a bright-green pistil and maroon filaments with pale-yellow anthers. The buds and seed-pods are smooth. This varies a good deal, smells strong of opium when picked, and its flowers glow like jewels among the underbrush on open hillsides, but fall to pieces when gathered.

There are a good many kinds of Eschscholtzia, with bitter, watery juice; leaves alternate, cut into many fine divisions; buds erect; flowers yellow; receptacle cuplike, often with a rim; the two sepals united to form a pointed cap, which is pushed off by the four petals as they expand; stamens numerous, with short filaments and long anthers; style very short, usually with four stigmas; pod long, narrow and ribbed, containing many seeds. These plants were collected at San Francisco in 1816 by von Chamisso, a German poet and naturalist, and named in honor of his friend Eschscholtz, a botanist.

California Poppy
Eschschóltzia Califórnica
Yellow
Spring
Cal., Oreg.

Probably the most celebrated western flower and deservedly popular. It varies a great deal in general form and coloring, but is usually a fine plant, over a foot tall, with stems and leaves a beautiful shade of light bluish-green, and the flowers two or three inches across, usually bright-yellow, shading to orange at the base, but sometimes almost cream-color. They open in sunlight and when blooming in quantities are a beautiful sight, covering the hillsides with a cloth of gold. In southern Arizona a similar kind often borders the dry beds of streams with bright color, with much the same value in the landscape as the Marsh Marigolds along New England streams. It is the State flower of California and has many poetic Spanish names, such as Torosa, Amapola, and Dormidera, besides Copa de Oro, meaning "Cup of gold."

California Poppy—Eschscholtzia Californica.

Wind Poppy—Papaver heterophyllum.

There are several kinds of Dendromecon, smooth shrubs, with alternate, toothless, leathery leaves and yellow flowers, with two sepals and four petals; stamens numerous, with short filaments; ovary with a short style and two, oblong stigmas. The name is from the Greek for "tree" and "poppy."

Tree Poppy
Dendromécon rígida
Yellow
All seasons
California

This is not a true Poppy, but the flowers are sufficiently like to be quite surprising when we find them growing on what appears to be a small willow tree! It is a handsome and decorative shrub, both in form and color, two to eight feet high, with pale woody stems, the main stem with shreddy bark, and light bluish-green foliage, the leaves something like those of willow, but quite stiff and leathery, with a little pointed tip, the short leaf-stalks twisted so as to bring the leaf into a vertical position. Sprinkled all over the bush are numbers of beautiful, clear golden-yellow flowers, one to three inches across, with orange-colored anthers and a pale-yellow pistil. This grows on dry, sunny hillsides, at middle altitudes, and is common in southern California, but is particularly fine near Santa Barbara. The flowers have a slight smell like cucumber and may be found in bloom at all seasons of the year. The ribbed seed-pod is long and narrow.

There is only one kind of Platystemon, with stem leaves opposite or in whorls; sepals three, soon falling; petals six; stamens many, with broad, flat filaments. The numerous pistils are at first partly united, forming a compound ovary; when ripe they separate into knotted pods, which break apart between the seeds. The name means "broad stamens."

Cream-cups
Platystèmon Califórnicus
Cream-color
Spring
Cal., Oreg., Ariz.

Pretty graceful plants, their creamy blossoms often whitening the spring meadows. The slender hairy stems are about a foot tall, the leaves and the nodding buds light-green and hairy, and the pretty flowers, about an inch across, are delicate cream-color, the petals often stained with bright-yellow, either at the tip or base, or both, with pretty creamy centers. This is common in the foothills, plains, and valleys.

Bush Poppy—Dendromecon rigida.

Cream-cups—Platystemon Californicus.

BLEEDING HEART FAMILY. Fumariaceae.

A small family, widely distributed; very smooth, tender, perennial herbs, with watery juice; alternate, compound leaves, finely cut, lobed and fringed into many divisions, and irregular, perfect flowers, of peculiar shape, with two, scale-like sepals, and four petals, the inner pair narrower than the outer and united by their tips over the stamens and style. The six stamens are in two, equal sets, the filaments of each set somewhat united, the middle anther of each set with two cells, the others with only one. The superior ovary develops into a long, dry, one-celled capsule, containing shiny, black seeds. This family has been united to the Poppies by Bentham and Hooker, because the plan of the flowers is similar, though their appearance is unlike.

There are several kinds of Bicuculla, natives of North America and Asia; perennials, with beautiful foliage and decorative flowers, of the curious and intricate shape we are familiar with in old-fashioned gardens. The pedicels have two bracts; the corolla is heart-shaped at base; the outer pair of petals are oblong and concave, with spreading tips and spurred or pouched at base, the inner pair are narrow and clawed, with crests or wings on the back; the style is slender, with a two-lobed stigma, each lobe with two crests. The creeping rootstock is surrounded by a bulb-like cluster of fleshy grains. These plants are often called Dutchman's Breeches, from the shape of the flower, which, of course, also gives the pretty name Bleeding Heart. Bicuculla is from the Latin, meaning "double-hooded."

Bleeding Heart
Bicucúlla formòsa (Dicentra)
Pink
Summer
Cal., Oreg., Wash.

This is a very beautiful and interesting plant, about two feet tall, with delicate pale-green leaves, beautifully cut and lobed, all from the root, with very long leaf-stalks, and a few, graceful sprays of purplish-pink flowers, each about three-quarters of an inch long. This has a fleshy, spreading rootstock and grows in shady spots, in rich, moist woods, at moderate altitudes, but is not very common. It is found in the Yosemite Valley. B. uniflòra is a diminutive alpine plant, from one to three inches high, usually with only one white or flesh-colored flower, about half an inch long, which is often hidden among dead leaves. This grows in rich soil on mountain sides in the Wasatch and Teton Mountains and in the Sierra Nevada, and is found in the Yosemite Valley and on Mt. Lyall, at a height of ten thousand five hundred feet. This is called Squirrel Corn and Steer's Head.

Bleeding Heart—Bicuculla formosa.

Golden Eardrops
Bicucúlla chrysántha (Dicentra)
Yellow
Summer
California

The general appearance of this handsome plant is striking and Japanese in effect, and the coloring of the feathery, pale-green foliage and the golden-yellow flowers is exceedingly odd and beautiful. The large, finely-cut leaves are sometimes a foot long, and resemble delicate ferns, and the smooth, stout, rather coarse flower-stems bear a few pretty flowers, which are a soft shade of yellow, about three-quarters of an inch long, the usual Bleeding Heart shape, but not drooping, and with a strong narcotic odor, much like that of poppies. This is sometimes as much as four feet high and grows in sunny places on dry ridges in the Coast Ranges, but is nowhere common.

There are many kinds of Capnoides, natives of the north temperate zone and Africa. They have oddly-shaped flowers, something like Bleeding Heart, but with only one spur, at the back on the upper side, instead of two. The name is from the Greek, meaning "smokelike," in allusion to the odor of some kinds.

Golden Eardrops—Bicuculla chrysantha.

Golden Corydal
Capnoìdes aùreum
(Corydalis)
Yellow
Spring
West

This has hollow, branching and spreading stems, from six to fourteen inches tall, with very pretty, delicate, pale-green foliage and bright-yellow flowers, each about half an inch long, on slender pedicels, in a loose cluster. The spurs give them a quaint and pert effect. The style stays on the tip of the long curved capsule, which looks like a bean-pod, drooping or sticking out at an awkward angle from the stem. This is especially fine in some of the mountain valleys in Utah, making beautiful clumps of foliage; it is widely distributed and is also found in the East. In the West it is sometimes called Dutchman's Breeches and confused with that plant, but rather absurdly so, for the Dutchman could have only one leg!

Pink Corydalis
Capnoìdes Scoúleri
(Corydalis)
Pink
Summer
Wash., Oreg.

A very beautiful and decorative plant, two or three feet tall, with large, exceedingly graceful leaves, vivid yet delicate in color and thin in texture, beautifully cut and lobed. The flowers are about an inch long, pale-pink shaded with deeper color, each with a long, cylindrical spur, and form pretty clusters, which show up very effectively against the tender green of the large clumps of delicate foliage, which are conspicuously beautiful. This grows in rich soil, in mountain woods, and is charming in the forests in Mt. Rainier National Park.

Pink Corydalis—Capnoides Scouleri.
Golden Corydal—C. aureum.

MUSTARD FAMILY. Cruciferae.

A large family, widely distributed. Both the English and Latin names are appropriate, for the watery juice of these plants is pungent, like mustard, and the flowers spread out their four petals in the form of a cross. They are herbs, the leaves alternate or from the root, usually with no leaf-stalks. The flowers have four petals, with claws; four sepals, the two outer ones narrow, apt to drop off; six stamens, two of them short. The ovary is superior, usually with a single style and stigma, and usually develops into a pod, divided in two by a transparent partition, which remains after the pod has opened from below; in some kinds the pod remains closed. The flowers generally grow in clusters and though they are often small they produce honey and so are frequented by bees and flies. The family is easily recognized by the four petals and in most species by two stamens being shorter than the others, but the flowers are so much alike that the various kinds have to be determined by examining the fruit. Radish and Horse-radish, Mustard and Water-cress all belong to this family, as well as many familiar garden flowers, such as Sweet Alyssum, Candytuft, Rockets, and Stocks, and many are common weeds, such as Peppergrass and Shepherd's Purse.

There are several kinds of Dentaria, smooth perennials, with rather large white or pink flowers and tuberous rootstocks.

Milk Maids, Pepper-root
Dentària Califórnica
White, pink
Spring
Cal., Oreg.

A charming plant, with a purplish stem, from six inches to two feet tall, and pretty leaves, varying in shape, those from the root being roundish in outline, or with three leaflets, but the stem-leaves with three or five leaflets. The flowers are about three-quarters of an inch across, with pure-white or pale-pink petals. This is one of the loveliest of the early spring flowers in the Coast Ranges and usually found in damp spots, both in woods and open places, often whitening the meadows with its blossoms.

Milk Maids—Dentaria Californica.

There are a good many kinds of Thelypodium, natives of North America, all western or southwestern; mostly smooth plants, the leaves usually with leaf-stalks, the flowers in clusters; stamens long, conspicuous, with very narrow, arrow-shaped anthers; pods long, cylindrical or four-sided, often twisted, sometimes on a slender stalk; seeds oblong, flattish, in one row in each cell.

Thelypòdium torulòsum
Lilac
Spring, summer
West, etc.

This has small flowers, but often grows in such quantities on the flats near Salt Lake that it tints the fields with purple. The purplish stem is from twelve to fifteen inches tall and the leaves are light bluish-green and very smooth, the root-leaves with long leaf-stalks, and the stem-leaves arrow-shaped and clasping at base. The flowers are about half an inch across, with a purplish-tinged calyx and pale pinkish-lilac petals, and form flat-topped clusters. The pods are spreading and rather knobby. This usually grows on dry hills, reaching an altitude of over nine thousand feet, as far east as Wyoming.

There are many kinds of Arabis, widely distributed, with small, white or purplish flowers.

Fendler's Arabis
Árabis Féndleri
Magenta
Spring
Arizona

This is a rather pretty plant, a foot or more tall, with more or less hairy stems and leaves and pretty clusters of magenta flowers, each about a quarter of an inch across. It grows on the rim of the Grand Canyon.

There are many kinds of Erysimum, most abundant in Europe and Asia. They are usually biennial or perennial, more or less downy; mostly with yellow flowers; the pods long, narrow and squarish or flattish, rarely round, with numerous seeds, in one row. In Europe these plants often grow in the crannies of old walls, hence the common name.

Western Wallflower
Erýsimum ásperum
Orange, lemon-yellow
Spring, summer
West, etc.

The vivid glowing orange of these handsome flowers is exceedingly effective among the dark tree-trunks of the mountain forests where they often grow. They are widely distributed as far east as Ohio. The stout, purplish stems are from one to two feet tall and the long, narrow leaves, often toothed, are apt to be purplish on the under side, and both stem and leaves are rather rough. The fragrant flowers, each about three-quarters of an inch across, form a handsome cluster, about three inches across. The calyx is yellow, the pistil green, and the anthers brown. The conspicuous, four-sided pods are spreading or erect, from one to five inches long, with a stout beak. In the high mountains the orange-color gives way to the variety perénne, with lemon-colored flowers, perhaps commoner than the orange, not so tall, and wonderfully handsome in the Wasatch Mountains, around Mt. Rainier and similar places, and widely distributed. The Cream-colored Wallflower, E. capitàtum, blooms early, growing near the coast; the flowers large, handsome, but not sweet-scented.

Western Wall-flower—Erysimum asperum.

Thelypodium torulosum.
Arabis Fendleri.

There are a good many kinds of Thlaspi, of temperate and arctic regions: smooth low plants, mostly mountain; root-leaves forming a rosette; stem-leaves more or less arrow-shaped and clasping; flowers rather small, white or purplish; sepals blunt; style slender, sometimes none, with a small stigma; pod flat, roundish, wedge-shaped, or heart-shaped, with crests or wings.

Wild Candytuft, Pennycress
Thláspi glaùcum
White
Spring, summer, autumn
Northwest and Utah

A rather pretty little plant, with several flower-stalks, springing from rosettes of leaves, dull-green, somewhat purplish and thickish, smooth and obscurely toothed, all more or less covered with a "bloom"; the flowers small, slightly fragrant, forming clusters less than an inch across, the white petals longer than the thin, greenish sepals. This grows on moist, mountain slopes. T. alpéstre, of the Northwest, is similar, but without "bloom."

There are only a few kinds of Dithyrea, grayish, hairy plants, resembling Biscutella of the Mediterranean, with yellowish or whitish flowers.

Dithýrea Wislizéni
White
Summer
Ariz., New Mex., Tex., Okla., Ark.

A little desert plant, from six to twelve inches tall, with branching stems; pale, yellowish-green, downy leaves, about an inch long, with wavy or toothed margins; small white flowers and funny little seed-pods, sticking out at right-angles from the stem. This grows at an altitude of three to four thousand feet and is found in the Petrified Forest.

There are many kinds of Streptanthus, difficult to distinguish, smooth plants, often with a "bloom"; stems branching; leaves often clasping at base, the lower ones usually more toothed or lobed than the upper. The flowers are very peculiar in shape, not like most Mustards, but suggesting the shape of a Bleeding Heart flower; the sepals usually colored like the petals, two or all of them bulging at base, so that the calyx is broad below and contracted above; the corolla regular or irregular, the petals purple or white, with claws and narrow, wavy or crisp borders; the stamens four long and two short, or in three unequal pairs, the longest pair often united below; the pods long, narrow, flattish or cylindrical, on a broad receptacle; the seeds flat and more or less winged. These plants are called Jewel-flower, but the name does not seem particularly appropriate.

Dithyrea Wislizeni.
Wild Candytuft—Thlaspi glaucum.

Shield-leaf
Streptánthus tortuòsus
Yellowish, purplish
Summer
California

Nothing about this odd-looking plant is pretty and it almost seems as if it were trying to make up by eccentricity for its lack of beauty. It is common in dry, sandy places in the mountains and our attention is first attracted to the tall, branching stalks, because they are strung with such queer-looking leaves. In summer the upper ones are bright-yellow or dull-purple and they clasp the stem and curve over, so that they look like small brass shields, pierced by the stem. There are three or four of these curving leaves, very smooth and shiny, and several more below, which are flatter and dark-green, and the stem, from six inches to three feet high, is oddly twisted and leans to one side. The small flowers are yellowish or mauve, veined with purple, less than half an inch long and peculiar in shape. The contrast in color between the flowers and leaves is very odd and very ugly, but as if this were not enough, later in the season the curious thing hangs itself with ridiculously long, slender pods, like great hooks, and looks queerer and more disheveled than ever.

Arizona Streptanthus
Streptánthus Arizònicus
White
Spring
Arizona

Prettier and not so queer-looking as the last. The leaves are arrow-shaped, clasping at base, rather leathery, bluish-green, with a "bloom" and tinged with purple on the backs, the lower ones toothed, and the pods are about two inches long, flat and tinged with purple. The flowers are half an inch long, pearly-white, the petals yellowish, veined with purple, and are quite pretty. This grows in dry places.

Arizona Streptanthus—Streptanthus Arizonicus.
Shield-leaf—S. tortuosus.

There are only a few kinds of Stanleya, all western; tall, stout, smooth perennials, or biennials, with a "bloom"; flowers large, mostly yellow, without bracts, in long, terminal, clusters; sepals long, narrow; petals long, narrow, with long claws; stamens six, very nearly equal; ovary on a short stalk, with a short style or none; pods long, narrow and flattish, with long stalks; seeds numerous. Named for Lord Edward Stanley, President of the Linnaean Society.

Golden Prince's Plume
Stánleya pinnatífida
Yellow
Spring
Southwest and New Mex.

The pretty common name of this tall, handsome plant was given by Helen Hunt Jackson and the long, feathery wand of numerous blossoms is beautiful and suggests a plume. On the other hand, the straggling flowers have such long, narrow, curling petals, the threadlike filaments look so much like curling antennae and the long, thin pods stick out so awkwardly, like insects' legs, from among the flowers on the lower part of the stalk, that we find the general effect is rather weird and spidery. In fact the plant I drew had a large yellow spider, precisely the color of the flowers, half-concealed among them. The stem is from two to five feet high; the leaves are smooth, pale bluish-green, the lower ones with leaflets and a leaf-stalk, and the flowers are bright-yellow, or cream-color, about an inch across. This grows usually in dampish spots, in arid regions. The picture is of one I found in Indian Garden Canyon, a branch of the Grand Canyon.

Dryopétalon runcinàtum
White
Spring
Arizona

The only kind, a fine plant, well worth cultivation; smooth and branching, about two feet tall, with handsome, bluish-green leaves, with a "bloom," the root-leaves with long, purplish leaf-stalks and sometimes nine inches long; the flowers half an inch across, with a lilac-tinged calyx and white petals, prettily toothed, forming a pretty, rather flat-topped cluster. The pods are very slender, nearly straight, one or two inches long. This grows among rocks, in protected situations, and is not common. Only a few, separate flowers are given in the picture, as the plant I found, near the Desert Laboratory at Tucson, was almost out of bloom.

Dryopetalon runcinatum.
Golden Prince's Plume—Stanleya pinnatifida.

There are a good many kinds of Lesquerella, all American; low plants, more or less hairy or scurfy; flowers mostly yellow, in clusters; petals without claws; pods roundish, more or less inflated, and giving the common name, Bladder-pod, also used for Isomeris arborea.

White Bladder-pod
Lesquerélla purpùrea
White, pink
Spring Arizona

Pretty little plants, often growing in quantities among rocks in mountain canyons. The slender stems are from a few inches to over a foot tall, springing from a cluster of root-leaves, varying a good deal in shape, dull-green and harsh to the touch. The flowers are half an inch or more across, with white petals, often tinged with pink, with a little yellow in the throat, and form a pretty, rather flat-topped cluster.

Yellow Bladder-pod Lesquerélla Arizònica
Yellow
Summer
Arizona

In desert places, such as the terrible sandy wastes of the Petrified Forest, where it seems a miracle that anything should grow, we find the close, pale, gray-green tufts of this little plant, crowned with racemes of small bright-yellow flowers. The small, thickish leaves are long, narrow and white with close down, the stems, about three inches high, branch at the root and the little pods are tipped with a style of about their own length. L. Gordóni, of Arizona, also has clusters of little yellow flowers, often covering sandy hillsides with bright color; the leaves slightly stiff and rough, the pods much inflated. It resembles L. purpurea in general form and size.

There are many kinds of Brassica, coarse "weeds" in this country. This is the ancient Latin name for Cabbage, which belongs to this genus, as well as Cauliflower, Turnip, and Brussels Sprouts.

Black Mustard
Brássica nìgra
Yellow
Summer
U. S.

A European "weed," common everywhere. In California it grows to an enormous height, sometimes twelve feet, and when in bloom is a beautiful feature of the landscape, covering the fields with a shimmering sheet of pale gold. The leaves are dark-green, smooth or with a few hairs, all with leaf-stalks, the lower leaves large and jagged, cut into leaflets, the upper leaves mostly toothless. The fragrant flowers form long clusters, each flower about three-quarters of an inch across; the small, cylindrical pods stand erect, close to the branching stem. A valuable, antiseptic oil is made from the black, pungent seeds, exported from California by the ton.

White Bladder-pod—Lesquerella purpurea.

CAPER FAMILY. Capparidaceae.

The flowers of this family are much like the Mustards, but the stamens are all of equal length and are often more than six; the leaves are alternate and consist of three or several leaflets, with stalks, and the plant usually tastes bitter and disagreeable instead of pungent. There is no partition in the pods, which are on long, threadlike stalks; the ovary is superior and the seeds are kidney-shaped. Many flowers have only a rudimentary pistil and never produce fruit. The Caper, of which we eat the pickled flower-buds for a relish, is a shrub which grows in the Levant. The family is quite large and flourishes in warm regions.

There are several kinds of Cleomella, resembling Cleome, except that the pods are different.

Cleomella
Cleomélla lóngipes
Yellow
Spring
Nev., Cal., Oreg.

This is a handsome, rather odd-looking plant, with a stout, smooth, yellowish or purplish stem, sometimes branching and over a foot tall. The leaves are bright light-green, smooth, toothless and slightly thickish, and the three leaflets are sometimes each tipped with a hair, and have a tuft of small hairs at the base of the leaf-stalk, in place of a stipule. The flowers are about half an inch across, and are a beautiful warm shade of golden-yellow, the long stamens being of the same color and giving a very pretty feathery appearance to the large cluster. The pods are queer-looking little things and stick straight out from the stem. This has a slightly unpleasant smell, but looks very gay and pretty in the fields and along the edges of the mesas around Reno.

Cleomella—C. longipes.

There are many kinds of Cleome; ours are branching herbs, with palmately-divided leaves; the flowers with four sepals, four petals, and six stamens. The ovary has a stalk with a gland at its base and becomes a long pod, with a long stalk and many seeds.

Bee-plant
Cleòme serrulàta
Pinkish-lilac, white
Summer
Southwest, etc.

In Arizona this exceedingly handsome plant often covers the dry beds of rivers with acres of beautiful color. The smooth, branching stem is sometimes as much as eight feet high. The upper leaves are long and narrow and the lower are larger and usually have three leaflets, but all are bluish-green and peculiarly soft and smooth to the touch. The buds are purple and the delicate flowers, with threadlike flower-stalks, grow in a handsome, feathery cluster, sometimes a foot long, with numerous bracts. They have four, pinkish-lilac or white petals and six exceedingly long, threadlike stamens with minute, curling, green anthers. The lilac pistil is also very long and before the flower drops off begins to develop into a small, flat, green pod. These gradually lengthen, until the stem is ornamented with many hooklike pods, with slender stalks, hanging all along it. Many of the flowers do not produce fruit. The foliage when it is crushed gives off a rank, unpleasant smell, which is responsible for the local name of Skunk-weed. This is widely distributed and is found in the central and northern part of the United States, as well as in the Southwest.

Bee-plant—Cleome serrulata.

Yellow Cleome
Cleòme platycàrpa
Yellow
Spring
Nevada

An odd-looking plant, with very pretty, feathery flower-clusters. The hairy stem is over a foot tall and the leaves are bright yellowish-green and mostly smooth on the upper side, with hairy margins and hairy on the under side. The flowers are a warm shade of bright golden-yellow and form a handsome, rather flat-topped cluster, with long stamens, and the oblong pods are an inch long or less, flat and much broader than those of the last. The flowers are slightly sweet-scented and the whole plant exudes a faint unpleasant odor. This is conspicuous on the dreary mesas around Reno, often growing with Cleomella longipes, which it very much resembles in general appearance, except for the pods, which are quite different.

There is only one kind of Isomeris.

Bladderpod
Isómeris arbòrea
Yellow
Spring
California

This is a shrub about three feet high, which is attractive except for its unpleasant smell. The leaves are smooth, toothless, stiffish and thickish, and bluish-green, with a small bristle at the tip, and mostly with three leaflets. The pretty flowers are nearly an inch across and warm yellow in color, not very bright but pretty in tone, with six very long, yellow stamens, and form a short, oblong cluster. The ovary has such a long stalk, even in the flower, that it gives an odd appearance and it develops into a very curious and conspicuous, drooping pod, an inch and a half long, much inflated and resembling a very fat pea-pod, on a long stalk, with two rows of seeds like little peas inside it, which taste very bitter. This is quite common on southern mesas. The name Bladderpod is also used for Lesquerella, which belongs to the Mustard Family.

Bladderpod—Isomeris arborea.

ORPINE FAMILY. Crassulaceae.

A rather large family, widely distributed; odd-looking, mostly very succulent herbs, with smooth, fleshy leaves and stems, without stipules; flowers in clusters; sepals, petals, pistils, and stamens, all of the same number, usually four or five, sometimes the stamens twice as many; ovary superior; receptacle with honey-bearing scales, one behind each pistil; pistils separate, developing into small dry pods, containing few or many, minute seeds. Some of these plants look like tiny cabbages and we are all familiar with their tight little rosettes in the formal garden-beds of hotels and railway stations, where they are so stiff and unattractive that we hardly recognize them when we find them looking exceedingly pretty in their natural homes. The Latin name means "thick."

There are many kinds of Sedum, no one kind very widely distributed; fleshy herbs; leaves usually alternate; flowers star-like, often in one-sided clusters; stamens and pistils sometimes in different flowers on different plants; sepals and petals four or five; stamens eight or ten, on the calyx, the alternate ones usually attached to the petals; styles usually short. The Latin name means "to sit," because these plants squat on the ground, and Stonecrop is from their fondness for rocks.

Douglas Stonecrop
Sèdum Douglásii
Yellow
Spring, summer
Northwest

This makes beautiful golden patches, on dry slopes or more or less open hilltops, usually among limestone rocks. The reddish stems are from six to ten inches tall, the leaves are rather long and narrow, thick but flat, forming pretty pale-green rosettes, more or less tinged with pink and yellow, and the pretty starry flowers are three-quarters of an inch across, bright-yellow, with greenish centers, the stamens giving a feathery appearance.

Yosemite Stonecrop
Sèdum Yosemiténse
Yellow
Summer
California

On moss-covered rocks, moistened by the glistening spray blowing from the Yosemite waterfalls, we find these beautiful plants, covering the stones with a brilliant, many-colored carpet. The flowers are stars of brightest gold, about half an inch across and delicately scented, and form flat-topped clusters, three or four inches across. The upper part of the stalk, which is about six inches tall, and the upper leaves are delicate bluish-green, but both stem and leaves shade to vivid scarlet at the base. Spreading out on the ground from the base of the stem in all directions are numerous little runners, each bearing at the end a small rosette of thick, blue-green leaves, forming a beautiful contrast to the vivid color of flowers and stems. The leaves and runners are very brittle and break off at a touch.

Douglas Stone-crop—S. Douglasii.
Yosemite Stonecrop—Sedum Yosemitense.

There are several kinds of Dudleya; perennials, very thick and fleshy; root-leaves in a conspicuous rosette, stem-leaves mostly bract-like, usually with a broad, clasping base; flowers mostly yellow or reddish; calyx conspicuous, with five lobes; petals united at base; stamens ten. Most of these plants grow in the South, often on rocks, in such shallow soil, that they would die in dry weather, except that the juicy leaves retain their moisture for a long time and nourish the plant. They resemble Sedum in appearance, but as the petals are more or less united the flowers are not starlike. The Indians make poultices out of the leaves.

Hen-and-Chickens
Dúdleya Nevadénsis (Cotyledon)
Orange-red
Summer
California

The succulent, reddish flower-stalks of this handsome plant bear large, loose, rather flat-topped clusters of orange-red flowers, on coiling branches, and are about a foot tall, with scaly bracts, springing from a large handsome rosette on the ground of very thick, pale-green leaves, often tinged with pink. Other smaller rosettes form a circle around it, hence its nice little common name. D. pulverulénta (Echeveria) is beautiful but weird-looking. It has red flowers, and the rosette, resembling a small Century-plant, is covered all over with a white powder which, among ordinary herbage, gives an exceedingly striking and ghostlike effect. This plant is sometimes a foot and a half across, with as many as eight, tall stalks, and is found from San Diego to Santa Barbara.

Hen-and-Chickens—Dudleya Nevadensis.

SAXIFRAGE FAMILY. Saxifragaceae.

A large family, almost all herbs, living usually in temperate regions. They have no very peculiar characteristics and resemble the Rose Family, but sometimes their leaves are opposite, usually they have no stipules and have fewer stamens than Roses, not more than twice as many as the sepals, and usually the pistils, from two to five in number, with distinct styles, are united to form a compound ovary, which is superior or partly inferior; sepals usually five; petals four, five, or rarely none, alternate with the sepals; petals and stamens borne on the calyx; fruit a dry pod or berry, containing numerous seeds. The Latin name means "rock breaker," as many grow among rocks.

There are several kinds of Parnassia, of north temperate and arctic regions; smooth perennials; leaves toothless, almost all from the root; flowers single; sepals five; petals five, each with a cluster of sterile filaments, tipped with glands, at the base; fertile stamens five, alternate with the petals; ovary superior, or partly inferior, with a very short style, or none, usually with four stigmas; fruit a capsule, containing numerous winged seeds. These plants were called Grass of Parnassus by Dioscorides, but are not grasslike. They resemble the other members of this family so little that they have been made into a separate family by some botanists.

Grass of Parnassus
Parnássia fimbriàta
White
Summer
Northwest

A charming plant, with several slender stems, about a foot tall, springing from a large cluster of handsome, very smooth, glossy leaves. The flowers are about an inch across and have cream-white petals, delicately veined with green and prettily fringed towards the base, and pale yellow anthers. At the base of each petal there is a queer little stiff cluster of sterile filaments, like a tiny green hand. This grows on banks of streams and in moist places, reaching an altitude of eleven thousand feet. P. Californica is similar, but the petals not fringed.

There are several kinds of Leptasea, perennials, with alternate, thick or stiffish leaves; flowers white or yellow, single or in terminal clusters; sepals five; petals five, with claws or claw-like bases; stamens ten; ovary mostly superior.

Grass of Parnassus—Parnassia fimbriata.

Dotted Saxifrage
Leptàsea austromontàna. (Saxifraga bronchialis)
White
Summer
Northwest

Pretty little plants, about six inches tall, forming matted clumps of stiff, rather dark green foliage, the twigs crowded with leathery, toothless leaves, bristly along the edges and tipped with a little stiff point. The pretty flowers are about half an inch across, their white petals dotted with dark red or purple towards the tips, sometimes dotted with yellow near the center, with yellow anthers and a pale green ovary, partly inferior. These little plants sometimes cover rocky slopes for long distances with their leafy mats and are common in the mountains at moderate altitudes.

There are several kinds of Muscaria, perennial, matted herbs; leaves alternate, usually three-lobed, mostly from the root; flowers white, single, or a few in terminal clusters; sepals five; petals five, without claws; stamens ten; ovary about one-half inferior.

Tufted Saxifrage
Muscària caespitòsa (Saxifraga)
White
Summer
Northwest, etc.

Pretty little plants, from two to six inches tall, with small leaves, with from three to five lobes or teeth, forming matted patches of pretty foliage, from which spring many slender, slightly hairy flower-stems, with a few bracts or leaves, and bearing one or more pretty flowers, less than half an inch across, with white petals, yellow anthers, and a greenish-yellow ovary. This grows in rocky crevices in the mountains, across the continent, also in arctic and alpine Europe and Siberia.

There are a good many kinds of Lithophragma, perennials, bearing bulblets on their slender rootstocks and sometimes also on the stems; leaves more or less divided, mostly from the root; stipules small; flowers few, in a loose, terminal cluster; sepals five; petals five, white or pink, with claws; stamens ten, short; ovary superior or partly inferior, with three short styles.

Woodland Star
Lithophrágma heterophýlla
White
Spring, summer
California

A little woodland plant, delicate and pretty, with a slender, hairy stem, from nine inches to two feet tall, springing from a pretty cluster of hairy leaves, variable in shape, but usually with three or five lobes. The starry flowers are three-quarters of an inch across, with white petals, prettily slashed. This is sometimes called Star of Bethlehem, but that name belongs to an Ornithogalum, grown in gardens.

Dotted Saxifrage—Leptasea austromontana.
Tufted Saxifrage—Muscaria caespitosa.
Woodland Star—Lithophragma heterophylla.

Youth-on-age
Leptáxis Menzièsii.
(Tolmiea)
Purplish
Summer
Wash., Oreg., Cal.

The only kind, a perennial, over a foot tall, with a hairy stem bearing a graceful wand of small flowers, springing from a cluster of root-leaves, bright green and thin in texture, but roughish and sparsely hairy. The flowers are about a third of an inch long, the calyx, which is the conspicuous part, dark-purple or pinkish-red and slightly irregular, with three large and two small sepals, and the petals of the same color, but so narrow that they look like long curling filaments. The three stamens are opposite the three upper sepals, the ovary is superior and the capsule has two long beaks. Young plants often spring from the base of the leaf, where it joins the leaf-stalk, and this habit gives the common name. This grows in mountain woods and is attractive, for though the flowers are dull in color they are unusual in form and the leaves are pretty.

There are a good many kinds of Heuchera, North American, difficult to distinguish; perennials, with stout rootstocks; leaves mostly from the root; flowers small, in clusters; calyx-tube bell-shaped, with five lobes; petals small, sometimes lacking, on the throat of the calyx, with claws; stamens five, inserted with the petals; ovary partly inferior, with two slender styles, becoming two beaks on the capsule.

Alumroot
Heuchèra micrántha
Pink and white
Summer
Cal., Oreg., Wash.

These feathery sprays are so airy and delicate that they might almost be made of mingled mist and moonshine, blown from the waterfalls they love to haunt, but are not so fragile as they look, for the clusters of tiny pink and white flowers last a long time in water. The stem is very slender, rather hairy, from one to three feet tall, springing from a cluster of roundish leaves, prettily lobed and scalloped, bright green, with some white hairs on the backs and on the long leaf-stems, often with red veins. The handsome leaves and lovely feathery spires are conspicuous, decorative and quite common, among mossy rocks in dark, rich mountain woods, up to six thousand feet.

Alumroot—Heuchera micrantha.
Youth-on-age—Leptaxis Menziesii.

Alumroot
Heuchèra rubéscens
Pink and white
Summer
Southwest, Utah, Nev.

This is not so tall and the leaves, with blunt teeth and sometimes slightly lobed, are smaller. In Utah they are dark green and shining on the upper side, smooth or slightly downy, with a bristle at the tip of each lobe, often reddish on the under side, and in Yosemite quite rough, with hairs on the edges and veins. The flowers are about a quarter of an inch across, the calyx deep-pink, with blunt, green teeth, the petals long, narrow and white, the general effect of the flower being pink. The clusters are not nearly so airy as those of H. micrantha and in the high Sierras the stems are shorter and the clusters still more compact. This was first found on one of the islands in Great Salt Lake. There are other similar kinds, some with greenish flowers.

There are several kinds of Micranthes, perennials, sometimes with bulblets at the base of the stem; leaves thickish, from the root; flowers white, in terminal clusters; petals five, mostly without claws; stamens ten; ovary slightly inferior.

Tall Swamp Saxifrage
Micránthes Oregàna (Saxifraga)
White
Summer
Northwest

This is conspicuous on account of its height, with a stout, stiff, leafless, hairy flower-stalk, three feet or more tall, springing from a loose rosette of smooth, thickish, bright-green leaves, not standing up stiffly but spreading, sometimes nearly a foot long, paler on the under side and obscurely toothed at the ends, with some minute hairs along the lower margins. The flowers are small, with cream-white petals, orange-red anthers and a green ovary, and form a long branching cluster towards the top of the stalk. This grows in swamps in the mountains.

Saxifrage
Micránthes
rhomboídea (Saxifraga)
White
Spring, summer
Southwest, Idaho, Utah, Col.

A little alpine plant, growing in moist soil, or on mossy rocks. The sticky-hairy flower-stem is from two to twelve inches tall, springing from a cluster of dull-green root-leaves, toothless, or toothed towards the ends, slightly thickish and very slightly downy and the flowers are small, and form a compact cluster.

Saxifrage—Micranthes rhomboidea.
Tall Swamp Sáxifrage—M. Oregana.

Modesty
Whípplea modésta
White
Spring
Wash., Oreg., Cal.

The only kind, a pretty little under-shrub, with many woody stems, spreading and trailing on the ground, the branches clothed with more or less hairy leaves, with three veins, and bearing clusters of very small flowers, with a pleasant honey-like fragrance. They usually have ten stamens, the ovary is partially inferior, with from three to five styles; sepals whitish; petals white, becoming greenish. The low masses of green foliage, spotted with white flower clusters, are a pretty feature of the Coast Range forests and thickets, especially among redwoods.

There are several kinds of Mitella, perennials, of North America and Asia.

Bishop's Cap, Mitrewort
Mitélla ovális
White
Summer Northwest and Utah

An inconspicuous little plant, of mountain woods, with pretty leaves and tiny flowers. The slender, hairy, leafless stem, about ten inches tall, springs from a cluster of root-leaves, smooth on the upper side, except for a few bristly hairs, with bristly hairs on the under veins and on the long, slender leaf-stalks. The flowers grow in a graceful, one-sided spray and have a five-lobed, green calyx, five minute petals, five stamens with short filaments, and a roundish ovary, almost wholly inferior. The petals have pretty little bits of feathery fringe between them, which make the little flowers look like tiny snow crystals in shape, when we examine them closely.

There are several kinds of Spatularia, perennials, sometimes with bulblets; leaves from the root, mostly toothed; flowers white, in open clusters; sepals five; petals all clawed, the three upper differing from the two lower; ovary chiefly superior.

Spatulària Brunoniàna (Saxifraga Nutkana) (Saxifraga Bongardi)
White
Summer
Northwest

A beautiful plant, with such slender stems and branches that, at a distance, the little white flowers look like specks of foam. The hairy, reddish stems, from a few inches to over a foot tall and very branching, spring from clusters of thickish, stiffish, hairy root-leaves and bear dozens of flowers, about three-eighths of an inch across, with white petals, spotted with yellow or red at the base and slightly irregular, the three upper petals being narrower than the two lower. The anthers are orange; ovary white or pinkish; calyxes and buds purplish-red. This grows among rocks in mountains.

Spatularia Brunoniana (small part of cluster).
Modesty—Whipplea modesta.
Bishop's Cap—Mitella ovalis.

HYDRANGEA FAMILY. Hydrangeaceae.

Shrubs or trees, with opposite leaves and no stipules. The flowers are in clusters and usually perfect, but sometimes those at the margins of the clusters are without pistils or stamens and larger than those in the middle; the calyx usually with four to ten sepals, and in sterile flowers often conspicuously enlarged; the petals four to ten; the stamens eight to many; the ovary wholly or partly inferior; the styles separate or united, sometimes lacking; the fruit a capsule. Many very ornamental garden shrubs, such as Deutzia and Hydrangea, are included in this family.

There are several kinds of Fendlera, natives of North America; shrubs, with white or pink flowers, with four sepals and four petals, the latter with claws. The eight stamens have two-forked filaments and the ovary is partly inferior, with four styles.

Féndlera rupícola
White, pink
Spring
Ariz., Utah, Nev.

Among the many beautiful plants to be found in the Grand Canyon one of the most conspicuous is the Fendlera. It is a tall, handsome shrub, growing along the upper part of Bright Angel trail, and in May it is covered with charming white blossoms. These flowers measure an inch across, and have cream-white or pale pink petals, narrowing to a claw at the base, and purplish sepals, and they grow in clusters of three or four, mixed with pink buds, on the ends of short branches. The small oblong leaves have three nerves and the wood is tough and gray, with deeply furrowed bark. Though their scent is rather unpleasant, the flowers are lovely and look just like some novel variety of fruit-blossom, but this resemblance is deceptive for they produce nothing but dry pods.

There are a good many kinds of Philadelphus, natives of North America, Asia, and Europe; shrubs, with large, white or cream-colored flowers; the calyx top-shaped, with four or five lobes; the petals four or five; the stamens twenty to forty, inserted on a disk; the ovary inferior, with three to five styles; the capsule top-shaped, containing many oblong seeds. These plants were named in honor of King Ptolemy Philadelphus. They are often called Mock-Orange, because the flowers often resemble orange-blossoms. The commonest name, Syringa, is confusing, because that is the generic name of the Lilac.

Fendlera rupicola.

Syringa
Philadélphus Califórnicus
White
Summer
Cal., Oreg., Wash.

In June and July, in the high Sierras, up to an altitude of four thousand feet, this lovely shrub forms fragrant thickets of bloom. It looks very much like the familiar garden Syringa and the smell is just as delicious. The bush is from four to twelve feet high, with smooth, pale, woody stems, dark-green leaves, sometimes slightly toothed, very smooth and shiny, and pretty flowers, in clusters at the ends of the branches. They are each about an inch across, with four or five, cream-white petals, rolled in the bud, and a golden center, composed of numerous, bright-yellow stamens.

Small Syringa
Philadélphus microphýllus
White
Summer
Ariz., Cal., New Mex.

A small shrub, not nearly so handsome as the last, from two to three feet high, with slender, pale-gray, woody stems, branching very abruptly. The small leaves are smooth and very bright green on the upper side, but the under side is very pale and covered with close white down. The flowers are much smaller than the garden Syringa, with white petals and numerous yellow stamens, the calyx reddish outside and downy within, and have a delicious smell, like lemon-blossoms. This pretty little shrub may be found growing in small shady canyons, in northern Arizona and elsewhere in the Southwest.

Small Syringa—P. microphyllus.
Syringa Philadelphus Californicus.

GOOSEBERRY FAMILY. Grossulariaceae.

A small family, shrubs, with alternate, palmately-lobed leaves, often sticky or resinous; the flowers almost always in clusters; the pedicels with a bract at the base and usually with two bractlets halfway up; petals five, or rarely four, usually smaller than the calyx-lobes; stamens of the same number as the petals and alternate with them; ovary inferior, with two styles, more or less united; fruit a berry, crowned with the withered remains of the flower.

There are several kinds of Grossularia, or Gooseberry; shrubs, sometimes with trailing branches, almost always spiny; flowers with bracts; ovary often spiny.

Wild Gooseberry
Grossulària Roèzli (Ribes)
Maroon and white
Spring
California

This is a stout shrub, one to four feet high, with thick, short, rigid little branches, the knobby joints more or less spiny. The roundish leaves, less than an inch across, are lobed and scalloped, rather dull green and slightly downy, and the flowers are about half an inch long, with maroon-colored sepals and white petals, the base of the calyx-tube downy. The purple berry is half an inch in diameter and covered with stout prickles. This Gooseberry is common at moderate altitudes. The drooping, red and white flowers resemble tiny Fuchsias, both in color and form. G. Menzièsii, the Canyon Gooseberry, also has pretty fuchsia-like flowers and grows in the Coast Ranges of California and Oregon, blooming in the winter.

Fuchsia-flowered Gooseberry
Grossulària speciòsa
Red
Spring
California

In spite of its name, the flowers of this handsome shrub do not look as much like Fuchsias as the two last. The stems are armed with long thorns and the leaves are thick, dark green, and glossy. The flowers have four sepals, four petals, and four stamens and are about an inch long and beautiful bright-red in color. The berry is dry and very prickly. This is common in the southern part of California.

Fuchsia-flowered Gooseberry—G. speciosa.
Wild Gooseberry—Grossularia Roezli.

There are many kinds of Ribes, or Currant, of temperate regions; shrubs, almost always smooth; flowers sometimes blooming before the leaves, with five petals, smaller than the five calyx-lobes, which are often colored; stamens five; ovary inferior, fruit a smooth, many-seeded berry. In general the low shrubs, with their pretty foliage, may be recognized by their resemblance to cultivated kinds. Ribes is the ancient Arabic name.

Black Currant
Rìbes Hudsoniànum
White
Spring, summer
Utah, Wash., Idaho, etc.

Except that its foliage has a strong disagreeable smell, this is an attractive shrub, three to six feet high, with pale gray, woody stems, without thorns, and smooth, bright green leaves, five-lobed and thin in texture, paler on the under side, with resinous dots and broad, papery stipules, in clusters, with reddish bracts at the base. The flowers form close, erect clusters, less than two inches long, springing from the same bud as the leaves; the calyx, which is the conspicuous part, cream-white, greenish in the center; the petals very small and white. The berry is smooth or hairy, round and black, without "bloom," and possibly edible, but so bad-smelling as to be avoided. This grows beside mountain streams and is found as far north as British Columbia.

Sierra Currant
Rìbes Nevadénse
Pink
Summer
Cal., Oreg., Wash., Nev.

A thrifty, mountain bush, from three to six feet high, the upper stems pale gray and the lower ones reddish; the leaves thin and smooth, prettily scalloped and lobed, often with a few white hairs at the base of the leaf-stalks. The flowers are fragrant and pink, over half an inch long, and form a close cluster, of eight or more. The berry is black, with a white "bloom," and tastes sweet and insipid. This reaches an altitude of eight thousand feet. Rìbes glutinòsum is called Incense-shrub, because of its strong fragrance. It is a large handsome shrub, sometimes fifteen feet high, with beautiful drooping clusters of gay pink flowers. The leaves are sticky when they first come out and the berry is blue, with a dense "bloom," bristly, dry and bitter, or insipid. This blooms in winter or early spring and is common in canyons near the coast.

Sierra Currant—Ribes Nevadense.
Black Currant—R. Hudsonianum.

Golden, Missouri
or Buffalo Currant
Rìbes àureum
Yellow
Spring, summer
West, etc.

A very handsome bush, from five to twelve feet high, with pretty foliage and smooth, pinkish-gray, woody stems. The bright green leaves, with three or five lobes, are thin in texture, with a few hairs on the leaf-stalks, fresh and glossy-looking, and setting off the bright clusters of clear yellow flowers, of which the calyx, half an inch across, with a long greenish-yellow tube, is the conspicuous part. The small petals are sometimes yellow, but often bright red and the fruit is smooth, yellow, red, or black, and edible. This is deliciously fragrant and spicy, very handsome and attractive, growing beside brooks and in moist canyons, where sometimes, in masses, it has at a distance the effect of Forsythia, but purer in color. It grows as far east as Missouri and is often cultivated.

APPLE FAMILY. Pomaceae.

A rather large family, widely distributed, including many attractive trees and shrubs, such as Mountain Ash and Hawthorn, as well as Pears and Apples, with pretty blossoms and conspicuous, often edible fruits; leaves alternate; stipules small; flowers regular, perfect, single or in clusters; calyx usually five-toothed or five-lobed; petals mostly five, usually with claws; stamens numerous, or rarely few, separate, with small anthers; ovary inferior and compound; styles one to five. The calyx-tube gradually thickens and becomes a "pome," or apple-like fruit, in which the core is the ovary.

There are several kinds of Amelanchier, of the north temperate zone; shrubs or trees, with thornless branches and white flowers, usually in clusters; calyx-tube bell-shaped, with five narrow sepals; petals five; stamens numerous, on the throat of the calyx; styles two to five in number, united and hairy at base; ovary wholly or partly inferior; fruit small and berry-like. The name is from the French for the Medlar. These shrubs are called Shadbush in the East, because they bloom just when the shad are beginning to run in the rivers.

Golden Currant—Ribes aureum.

Service-berry, June-berry
Amelánchier alnifòlia
White
Spring, summer
West, etc.

A pretty shrub with woody, branching stems, reddish twigs and smooth, bright green leaves, sometimes downy on the under side, toothed only at the ends. The flowers, less than an inch across, have long, narrow, straggling petals, and are so mixed with leaves, and crowded so irregularly on the branches, that the effect is rather ragged. The roundish, pulpy, black fruit is liked by the Indians, but though sweet is insipid. When thickets of this shrub are in bloom on mountainsides the effect is very pretty, especially in Utah, where the shrubs are more compact and the flowers less straggling than in Yosemite, giving at a distance much the effect of Hawthorn. It grows as far east as Nebraska and in British Columbia.

PLUM FAMILY. Drupaceae.

A rather small family, widely distributed, trees or shrubs, the bark exuding gum, the foliage, bark, and seeds bitter, containing prussic acid; leaves alternate, toothed, with leaf-stalks; stipules small; flowers mostly perfect, regular, single or in clusters; calyx five-lobed, dropping off after flowering; petals five, inserted on the calyx; stamens numerous, inserted with the petals; pistil one in our genera; ovary superior, developing into a stone-fruit.

There are many kinds of Prunus, including Cherry as well as Plum, with white or pink flowers and usually edible fruits. Prunus is the ancient Latin name for plum.

Holly-leaved Cherry, Islay
Prùnus ilicifòlia
White
Summer
California

Mountain slopes near Santa Barbara are beautiful in June with the creamy flowers of this very ornamental evergreen shrub, from five to twenty-five feet high, with shiny, leathery, dark green leaves, with prickly edges, looking much like Holly. The small flowers form close but feathery clusters, from one to three inches long, and smell pleasantly of honey. The sweetish fruit, not particularly good to eat, is a dark red cherry, about half an inch in diameter. In dry places these shrubs are small, but in favorable situations, such as the old mission gardens, where they have been growing for perhaps a hundred years, they develop into small trees.

Islay—Prunus ilicifolia.
Service-berry—Amelanchier alnifolia.

ROSE FAMILY. Rosaceae.

A large and important family, widely distributed and including some of our loveliest flowers and most delicious fruits; herbs, shrubs, or trees; generally with stipules and usually with alternate leaves; the flowers rich in pollen and honey and usually perfect. The calyx usually five-lobed, often with bracts, with a disk adhering to its base; the petals of the same number as the calyx-lobes, separate or none; the stamens usually numerous, separate, with small anthers; the ovary superior, or partly inferior; the pistils few or many, separate or adhering to the calyx, sometimes, as in the true Rose, enclosed and concealed in a hollow receptacle; the fruit of various kinds and shapes.

There are several kinds of Opulaster, branching shrubs, with clusters of white flowers and grayish or reddish, shreddy bark.

Ninebark
Opuláster malvàceus
(Physocarpus)
White
Summer
Northwest, Utah, Ariz.

This is a handsome bush, from three to six feet high, with pretty, almost smooth, bright green leaves, with large stipules. The flowers are sweet-smelling, about half an inch across, with cream-white petals, and form very beautiful and conspicuous rounded clusters, about three inches across, the long stamens giving a very feathery appearance. At a distance this shrub has the effect of Hawthorn in the landscape. It grows on mountainsides in rich soil.

Apache Plume
Fallùgia paradóxa
White
Spring
Ariz., New Mex.

There are two kinds of Fallugia. This is usually a low undershrub, but in the Grand Canyon, on the plateau, it is a fine bush, four or five feet high, with pale woody, branching stems; the small, somewhat downy, evergreen leaves, resembling those of the Cliff Rose, but the flowers larger. They are white, two inches across, like a Wild Rose in shape, with beautiful golden centers, and grow on long, slender, downy flower-stalks, at the ends of the branches. Individually, they are handsomer than the flowers of the Cliff Rose, but not nearly so effective, as the bloom is much more scattered. The calyx-tube is downy inside and the five sepals alternate with five, small, long, narrow bractlets. The hairy pistils are on a small conical receptacle, surrounded by a triple row of very numerous stamens on the margin of the calyx-tube.

Ninebark—Opulaster malvaceus.

Wild Roses are widely distributed in the northern hemisphere and are too familiar to need much description. There are numerous kinds; some are climbing, all are prickly and thorny, with handsome, often fragrant, flowers and compound leaves, with toothed edges. The numerous yellow stamens are on the thick margin of a silky disk, which nearly closes the mouth of the calyx. The numerous pistils develop into akenes, or small, dry, one-seeded fruits. These look like seeds and we find them inside the calyx-tube, which in ripening enlarges and becomes round or urn-shaped. These swollen calyx-tubes are the "hips," which turn scarlet and add so much to the beauty of the rose-bush when the flowers are gone. Rosa is the ancient Latin name.

Fendler's Rose
Ròsa Féndleri
Pink
Spring, summer
Idaho, Utah, Ariz.

This is a very handsome thrifty bush, about four feet high, with smooth, or slightly downy, bright green leaves, and thorny stems, with slightly curved thorns. The flowers are more or less fragrant and about two inches across, with bright pink petals, which gradually become paler as they fade, and pretty crimson-tipped buds. This has smooth "hips" and is a beautiful and conspicuous kind, growing in valleys and along streams, up to an altitude of nine thousand feet. It is widely distributed and variable, probably including several forms.

California Wild Rose
Ròsa Califórnica
Pink
Spring, summer, autumn
Cal., Oreg.

A large bush, three to six feet high, with erect, branching stems, armed with a few, stout thorns, which turn back. The leaves are more or less downy, especially on the under side, with from three to seven leaflets, and the flowers usually form a cluster of few or many and are each from one to nearly two inches across, with pale pink petals. They are lovely flowers, with a delicious fragrance, and are common at low and moderate altitudes in California, usually growing near streams.

Rosa Fendleri.
California Wild Rose—R. Californíca.

Redwood Rose
Ròsa gymnocàrpa
Pink
Spring, summer
Northwest

A charming kind, delicate both in foliage and flower, usually growing in shady, mountain woods. The slender bush is from one to three feet high, with dark brown stems, armed with some straight, slender thorns, and light green leaves, usually with quite a number of neat little leaflets, smooth and thin in texture. The flowers are an inch or less across, usually single, with light yellow centers and bright pink petals, very clean and fresh in tone, usually deeper towards the margins. The sepals are not leafy at the tips, the flower-stalks, and sometimes the leaf-stalks also, are covered with small, dark, sticky hairs and the buds are tipped with carmine. Neither leaves nor flowers are fragrant.

Mountain Misery
Chamaebàtia foliolòsa
White
Summer
California

This is the only kind. In open places, in the Sierra forests, the ground is often carpeted for acres with the feathery foliage of this charming shrub, sprinkled all over with pretty white flowers. Mountain Misery does not at first seem an appropriate name for so attractive a plant, but when we walk through the low, green thickets we find not only that the tangled branches catch our feet but that the whole plant is covered with a strong-smelling, resinous substance, which comes off on our clothes in a most disagreeable manner. On a warm day the forest is filled with the peculiar, medicinal fragrance and when, later in the season, we unpack our camping outfit we are apt to be puzzled by the smell of "Pond's Extract" which our clothes exhale. The shrub is usually less than two feet high, with downy, evergreen foliage, the numerous small leaflets so minutely subdivided and scalloped that they have the appearance of soft ferns. The flowers resemble large strawberry-blossoms, and have a top-shaped, five-lobed calyx, many yellow stamens and one pistil, becoming a large, leathery akene. The smell and foliage attract attention and the shrub has many names, such as Bear-mat and Kittikit, or Kit-kit-dizze, so-called by the Indians. Bears do not eat it, so the name Bear-clover is poor, and Tarweed belongs to another plant. It is used medicinally.

Redwood Rose—Rosa gymnocarpa.
Mountain Misery—Chamaebatia foliolosa.

This is the only kind of Stellariopsis; perennial herbs; the leaves with many, minute, crowded, overlapping leaflets; the flowers white, in open clusters; bractlets, sepals, and petals five; stamens fifteen; pistil one, surrounded by bristles.

Pussy-tails
Stellariópsis santolinoìdes
(Ivesia)
White
Summer
California

The leaves of this odd little plant look like catkins, or the sleek, gray tails of some little animal. They are cylindrical in form, three or four inches long, composed of many minute leaflets, crowded closely around a long, central stem. These little leaflets, hardly more than green scales, are smothered with soft, white down, which gives the whole "tail" a silky, silvery-gray appearance. From the midst of a bunch of these curious leaves, which are mostly from the root, spring several very slender stems, widely branching above, from six to twelve inches tall, and at the ends of the branches are airy clusters of pretty little flowers, like tiny strawberry-blossoms. These little plants grow in sandy soil, at high altitudes, and are plentiful on the gravelly "domes" around Yosemite.

There are a good many kinds of Horkelia; perennial herbs, with compound leaves, usually with many leaflets, and flowers in clusters; calyx cup-shaped, or saucer-shaped, with five teeth and five bractlets; stamens ten; pistils two or many, with long slender styles, and borne on a receptacle like that of Potentilla, which these plants resemble, though the flowers are usually smaller, in closer clusters.

Horkèlia fúsca
White
Summer
Cal., Oreg., Nev.

A rather attractive plant, for the foliage is pretty, though the flowers are not very conspicuous. The rather stout, roughish stem, often purplish, is from one to two feet tall and the leaves are rather dark green, slightly sticky and sometimes downy. The flowers are about half an inch across, with white petals, tinged with pink, and are well set off by the dark reddish or purplish calyxes and buds, but the petals are too far apart, and there are not enough flowers out at one time, for the effect to be good. This varies a good deal in hairiness and there are several varieties. It is common in Yosemite.

Pussy-tails—Stellariopsis santolinoides.
Horkelia fusca.

There are several kinds of Cowania.

Cliff Rose
Cowània Stansburiàna
Yellow
Spring, summer
Southwest

Altitude and soil make a great difference in the beauty of this shrub. On the rocky rim of the Grand Canyon it is from four to eight feet high, picturesquely gnarled and twisted, but stunted looking, the gray bark hanging off the crooked branches and thick, distorted trunk in untidy shreds, the flowers pale, scanty, and but faintly scented. Halfway down Bright Angel trail it is a glorious thing, full of color and fragrance, about twelve feet high, luxuriant and healthy-looking. The small, leathery, evergreen leaves, crowded in bunches along the branches, are glossy and rich in color, setting off the light yellow flowers, with golden centers, which form long wands of bloom. The upper branches are clustered closely their whole length with blossoms, and when the wind sways the flowering branches to and fro they exhale an exquisite fragrance like orange flowers. The bloom is at its best in the Canyon in May, but there are still some lingering flowers in August. The calyx is top-shaped, with the petals and the two rows of numerous stamens on the throat of the tube. The pistils, from five to twelve, are densely woolly. The akenes have pale, silky-hairy tails, two inches or more in length, suggesting gone-to-seed Clematis. For some occult reason this shrub is called Quinine Bush at the Grand Canyon.

There are two kinds of Aruncus, resembling Spiraea; with small white flowers, the stamens and pistils in separate flowers on different plants. Aruncus is a word used by Pliny to designate a goat's beard.

Goat's Beard
Arúncus sylvéster
(Spiraea aruncus)
White
Summer
Northwest, etc.

A pretty plant, from three to seven feet high, with somewhat branching stems and smooth leaves, thin in texture. The minute, cream-white flowers are crowded closely along the many sprays which make up the very loose cluster, which is about a foot long, the effect of the whole being exceedingly airy and graceful and in fine contrast to the handsome foliage. This grows in mountain woods, across the continent and in Europe and Asia.

Cliff Rose—Cowania Stansburiana.

Goat's Beard—Aruncus sylvester.

There are only a few kinds of Adenostoma, evergreen shrubs, with small, narrow, resinous leaves and clusters of small, white flowers.

Chamise, Greasewood
Adenóstoma fasciculàtum
White
Spring
California

This is a very attractive shrub, from two to ten feet high, with long, slender branches, clothed with close bunches of leaves and bearing large clusters of tiny flowers, something like Spiraea. They have a feathery, creamy appearance, owing to the pale yellow stamens, and the olive-green foliage sets them off to perfection, the effect of the whole being very graceful, as the slender, flower-tipped branches sway to and fro in the wind. This is the most abundant and characteristic shrub of the higher Coast Ranges and Sierra Nevada Mountains and sometimes covers miles of mountain slopes, looking a good deal like heather when it is not in bloom. When the chaparral is composed entirely of this shrub it is called chamisal. A. sparsifòlium of southern California, has scattered leaves and larger flowers. It is very fragrant and used medicinally by Spanish Californians and Indians, who call it Yerba del Pasmo, or "convulsion herb."

There are many kinds of Spiraea, natives of the north temperate zone; shrubs, without stipules and with clusters of white or pink flowers.

Flat-top Meadowsweet
Spiraèa corymbòsa
White
Spring, summer
Northwest, etc.

This is an attractive plant, from one to three feet tall, with slender, reddish-brown stems, with but few branches, and smooth, bright green leaves, paler on the under side. The small flowers are cream-white, with pinkish buds, and form very pretty, feathery, flat-topped clusters, about three inches across. This is found on banks and rocky places, in the mountains, and grows also in the East.

Pyramid Bush
Spiraèa pyramidàta
(S. betulaefolia in part)
Pink, white
Spring, summer
Northwest

An attractive plant, but not so pretty as the last. It is about the same height, but more branching, with dark bluish-green leaves, somewhat pale on the under side. The flowers are white or pale pink, with deep pink buds, and form long clusters, not so feathery as the last, because the stamens are not so long. This grows in the mountains.

Chamise—Adenostoma fasciculatum.
Flat-top Meadow-sweet—Spiraea corymbosa.
Pyramid Bush—S. pyramidata.

Hardhack, Steeple-bush
Spiraèa Doúglasii
Pink
Spring, summer
Wash., Oreg., Cal.

A handsome shrub, from three to five feet high, with rather coarse leaves, smooth, but with a dull surface, and pale with close down on the under side, and bearing many beautiful, compact spires of small, pink flowers, warm in tone and deeper in color towards the center, with numerous, long, pink stamens, which give a very feathery appearance. The flowers are slightly sweet-smelling and bloom first at the top of the cluster, so that the effect of the whole spire, which is six or eight inches long, is light pink and fuzzy at the top, deepening below to the raspberry-pink of the buds. This grows along the edges of meadows and near brooks.

There are two kinds of Chamaebatiaria, both western; low shrubs; the flowers with five sepals, five petals, and about sixty stamens; the pistils five, more or less united.

Fern-bush
Chamaebatiària millefòlium
(Spiraea)
White
Summer
Arizona

A pretty and unusual-looking shrub, about three feet high, with reddish stems and shreddy bark, the downy leaves, pale yellowish-green in color, arranged at intervals along the branches in soft feathery bunches. The flowers are like small strawberry blossoms, slightly fragrant, and form pretty clusters. This grows on rocks, along the rim of the Grand Canyon, clinging to the edge and overhanging the depths.

There is only one kind of Coleogyne.

Coleógyne ramosíssima
Yellow
Spring
Southwest

The plateau in the Grand Canyon is covered for miles with this low shrub, which gives the landscape its characteristic pale desert coloring. The flowers, over half an inch across, with one or two pairs of three-lobed bracts at base, grow singly at the tips of the twigs and, unlike most of this family, have no petals and only four, spreading sepals, bright yellow inside, two of them pointed and the alternate two more round in shape. The ovary is enclosed in a yellow, hollow, urn-shaped receptacle, surrounded by numerous stamens inserted on its base, the yellow anthers with threadlike filaments. The very small, narrow, toothless leaves are evergreen, leathery and stiff, opposite, grayish in color and imperceptibly downy, clustered in small separate bunches along the rigid twigs, which are set almost at right angles to the reddish-gray branches and rather swollen at the joints. The whole shrub is from two feet to four feet high, stiff, almost thorny, and rather forbidding in appearance, but the odd little flowers are pretty.

Coleogyne—ramosissima.
Hardhack—Spiraea Douglasii.
Fern-bush—Chamaebatiaria millefolium.

There are several kinds of Argentina, differing from Potentilla in the leaflets and the style.

Silver-weed
Argentìna Anserìna
(Potentilla)
Yellow
Spring, summer, autumn
North America, etc.

This forms large straggling clumps of many, pale, downy stems, lying on the ground and rooting at the joints, like strawberry runners, with handsome foliage and pretty flowers. The leaves are rich green on the upper side and covered with silky white down on the under, giving a silvery appearance, and the flowers are an inch or more across, bright yellow, with centers of the same shade, and have long flower-stalks, sometimes as much as a foot tall. This is common and conspicuous in wet meadows and also grows in Europe and Asia.

There are only a few kinds of Dryas, shrubby plants, living in cold and arctic regions. The Latin name means "wood-nymph."

Alpine Avens
Drýas octopétala
White
Summer
Northwest, etc.

This is a charming little plant, from two to five inches tall, forming low, matted clumps of many branching stems, lying on the ground and woody at the base, and many stiffish leaves, with prominent veins, dark green and smooth on the upper side and white with close down on the under, their dark tones setting off the pure-white flowers, which have downy flower-stalks and are about an inch across, with about eight petals, a golden center and the calyx covered with sticky hairs. The seed-vessels are large and feathery. This grows in alpine places, across the continent, reaching an altitude of fourteen thousand feet, and in Europe and Asia.

Silver-weed—Argentina Anserina.
Alpine Avens—Dryas octopetala.

There are many kinds of Cinquefoils, mostly natives of the north temperate zone, usually herbs, with compound leaves and yellow, white or purple flowers, always with pedicels; the flat or cup-shaped calyx, with five, main teeth, alternating with five, tooth-like bractlets; petals five, broad, often notched; stamens numerous, with threadlike filaments and small anthers, near the base of the calyx-cup; pistils numerous, on the conical, hairy receptacle, which does not become fleshy or juicy, each pistil maturing into a dry, seed-like akene. Potentilla means "powerful," as some sorts are medicinal. They often resemble Buttercups, but never have shiny petals, and Buttercups do not have bractlets between the calyx-lobes.

Arctic Cinquefoil
Potentílla emarginàta
Yellow
Summer
Northwest

A dear little plant, forming low tufts, two or three inches high, with thin, brownish stipules, bright green leaves, more or less hairy, and bright yellow flowers, deeper in color towards the center and about half an inch across. This grows in high northern mountains across the continent and in Siberia.

Silky Cinquefoil
Potentílla pectinisécta
Yellow
Spring, summer
Utah, Ariz., Wyo.

The foliage of this plant is a lovely shade of silvery gray, which suits the yellow flowers. It has several stoutish, reddish, stems, a foot to a foot and a half tall, springing from clumps of leaves, with long leaf-stalks and five to seven leaflets. The bright-yellow flowers are each three-quarters of an inch across and the whole plant is conspicuously covered with long, thick, white, silky down, particularly on the under side of the leaves.

Shrubby Cinquefoil
Dasíphora fruticòsa
(Potentilla)
Yellow
Spring, summer
West, etc.

This is the only kind of Dasiphora, a pretty shrub, very branching and leafy, one to four feet high, dotted all over with charming flowers. The bark is shreddy and the gray-green leaves are covered with silky down, with rolled back margins, and paler on the under side. The flowers, single or in clusters, are over an inch across, with clear yellow petals and deeper yellow anthers. This is common in the mountains, across the continent, up to an altitude of ten thousand feet, and is a troublesome weed in northern New England. It is also found in Europe and Asia.

Arctic Cinquefoil—P. emarginata.
Shrubby Cinquefoil—Dasiphora fruticosa.
Silky Cinquefoil—Potentilla pectinisecta.

There are several kinds of Sericotheca, much like Spiraea, except the fruits.

Ocean Spray
Sericothèca discolor (Spiraea) (Holodiscus)
White
Summer
Northwest and Southwest

A handsome conspicuous shrub, from three to eight feet high, without stipules, with roughish, dull-green leaves, toothed or lobed, but not with leaflets, and pale and woolly on the under side. The tiny flowers form beautiful, plumy, branching clusters, eight inches or more in length and almost as much across, cream-white and fuzzy, drooping and turning brownish as the flowers fade. This is common in the mountains.

There are numerous kinds of Rubus, in temperate regions, with white, pink, or purple flowers, and red, black, or yellowish "berries." The fruit is not really a berry, but a collection of many, tiny, round stone-fruits, crowded on a pulpy, conical receptacle. That of the Raspberry has a "bloom," and falls off the receptacle when ripe, but the Blackberry has shining, black fruit, which clings to the receptacle. Rubus, meaning "red," is the ancient Latin name for the bramble. Raspberries were cultivated by the Romans in the fourth century.

Salmon-berry
Rùbus spectàbilis
Red
Summer
Northwest

A handsome bush, not at all trailing, from three to nine feet high, with dark-brown, prickly stems, fine foliage and flowers, and conspicuously beautiful fruit. The leaves are nearly smooth, with three leaflets, and the flowers, about two inches across, are a brilliant shade of deep pink, not purplish in tone, with yellow centers, and grow singly, or two or three together. The fruit is a firm, smooth raspberry, over an inch long, bright orange-color, more or less tinted with red, with a rather pleasant but insipid taste and not very sweet. This grows in woods. It is rather confusing that this should be called Salmon-berry in the West, for in the East that is the common name of Rubus parviflorus.

Common Blackberry
Rùbus vitifòlius
White
Spring, summer
California, etc.

An evergreen bush, a few feet high and more or less erect; or the prickly stems trailing on the ground, or climbing over other shrubs, and sometimes eighteen feet long. The leaves are downy, or almost smooth, usually rather coarse in texture, and all but a few of the upper ones have from three to seven leaflets. The flowers are about an inch across and the petals vary a good deal, being sometimes broad and sometimes rather long and narrow. This is common from southern California to British Columbia.

Salmon-berry—R. spectabilis.
Common Blackberry—Rubus vitifolius.