SNOW-PLANT.

SCARLET GILIA—Gilia Aggregata.

Fleshy, glandular-pubescent plants; six inches to over a foot high; bright red; without green foliage; having, in place of leaves, fleshy scales, with glandular-ciliate margins.Flowers.—Short-pediceled.Sepals.—Five.Corolla.—Six lines long; campanulate; with five-lobed limb.Stamens.—Ten. Anthers two-celled; opening terminally.Ovary.—Five-celled; globose. Style stout. Stigma capitate.Hab.—Throughout the Sierras, from four to nine thousand feet elevation.

I shall never forget finding my first snow-plant. It was upon a perfect August day in the Sierras. Following the course of a little rill which wound among mosses and ferns through the open forest where noble fir shafts rose on every hand, I came unexpectedly upon this scarlet miracle, standing in the rich, black mold in a sheltered nook in the wood. A single ray of strong sunlight shone upon it, leaving the wood around it dark, so that it stood out like a single figure in atableau vivant. There was something so personal, so glowing, and so lifelike about it, that I almost fancied I could see the warm life-blood pulsing and quivering through it. I knelt to examine it. In lieu of leaves, the plant was supplied with many overlapping scalelike bracts of a flesh-tint. These were quite rigid below and closely appressed to the stem, but above they became looser and curled gracefully about among the vivid red bells.

I had heard that the plant was a root parasite; so it was with much interest and great care I dug about it with my trowel. But I failed to find its root connected with any other. I have since learned that it is now considered one of those plants akin to the fungi, which in some mysterious way draw their nourishment from decaying or decomposing matter.

I carried my prize home, where it retained its beauty for a number of days. I afterward found many of them. They gradually follow the receding snows up the heights; so that late in the season one must climb for them.

SNOW-PLANT—Sarcodes sanguinea.

The name "snow-plant" is very misleading, because from it one naturally expects to find the plant growing upon thesnow. But this is rarely or never the case, for it isafterthe melting of the snow that it pushes its way aboveground.

Late in the season the plant usually has one or more well-formed young plants underground at its base. These are all ready to come forth the next season at the first intimation that the snow has gone, which easily accounts for its marvelously rapid growth. By the end of August, the seed-vessels are well developed, and as large as a small marble, but flattened; and by that time the plants have lost their brilliant coloring, and become dull and faded.

It is said that the stems have been boiled and eaten, and found quite palatable; but this would seem to the lover of the beautiful like eating the showbread from the ark of Nature's tabernacle.

Stems.—Three to ten feet tall. Leaves.—Large; five- to seven-lobed nearly to the base, the lobes three- to five-cleft, with long-pointed segments.Flowers.—Large.Sepals.—Lanceolate; eight lines or more long; rotately spreading; the spur an inch or more long; pointed.Upper petals.—Orange, tipped with red; pointed; standing prominently forward. (Otherwise asD. nudicaule.)Hab.—The mountains, from Ventura County to San Diego.

During all the long springtime, Nature has been quietly making her preparations for a grand floraldenouementto take place about mid-June. If we go out into the mountains of the south at that season, we shall be confronted with a blaze of glory, the like of which we have probably never witnessed before. This is due to the brilliant spires of the scarlet larkspur, which sometimes rise to a height of ten feet!

One writer likens the appearance of these blossoms, as they grow in dense masses, to a hill on fire; and Mr. Sturtevant writes: "To come upon a large group of these plants in full bloom for the first time, is an event never to be forgotten. I first saw a mass of them in the distance from the top of a hill. Descending, I came upon them in such a position that the raysof the setting sun intensified the brilliancy of their fiery orange-scarlet color. I gathered a large armful of stalks, from three to seven feet high, and placed them in water. They continued to expand for several weeks in water."

There is a general resemblance between this and the northern scarlet larkspur, but the clusters of this are far larger and denser, and the individual flowers are finer. The half-opened buds more resemble the open flowers ofD. nudicaule; but the fully expanded flowers have the form of some of the finest of the blue larkspurs.

The plants affect a sandy soil or one of decomposed granite.

Stems.—Two to four feet tall; slender, smooth or nearly so.Leaves.—Alternate; mostly sessile; lanceolate or almost linear; glandular-denticulate.Flowers.—In an elongated, wandlike raceme; cardinal red.Calyx.—Five-cleft.Corolla.—With straight tube, over an inch long and split down the upper side; border two-lipped; upper lip with two rather erect lobes; lower spreading and three-cleft, with lobes three to six lines long.Stamens.—Five; united into a tube above. Anthers somewhat hairy.Ovary.—Two-celled. Style simple. Stigma two-lobed.Hab.—San Diego, San Bernardino, and Los Angeles Counties, and eastward to Texas.

The Western cardinal-flower quite closely resemblesL. cardinalisof the East, differing from it in a few minor points only. I have never been fortunate enough to see it; but I am told that it is a magnificent plant, and that from July to September many a wet spot in our southern mountain cañons is made gay with its brilliant blossoms.

Of the Eastern plant Mr. Burroughs writes: "But when vivid color is wanted, what can surpass or equal our cardinal-flower? There is a glow about this flower, as if color emanated from it as from a live coal. The eye is baffled and does not seem to reach the surface of the petal; it does not see the texture or material part as it does in other flowers, but rests in a steady, still radiance. It is not so much something colored as it is color itself. And then the moist, cool, shady places itaffects usually, where it has no rivals, and where the large, dark shadows need just such a dab of fire! Often, too, we see it double, its reflected image in some dark pool heightening its effect."

Woody plants, more or less villous.Stems.—Much branched; ascending or decumbent; one to three feet long.Leaves.—Mostly alternate; sessile; narrowly lanceolate to ovate; six to eighteen lines long.Flowers.—Bright scarlet; in a loose spike; funnel-form; twenty lines long.Calyx.—Scarlet; four-cleft.Petals.—Four; obcordate; borne on the calyx-tube.Stamens.—Eight. Filaments and style more or less exserted.Ovary.—Four-celled; inferior. Stigma four-lobed.Hab.—From Plumas County to Mexico; and the Rocky Mountains east of the Great Basin.

In late summer and through the autumn, the brilliant blossoms of the California Fuchsia brighten the sombre tones of our dry, open hill-slopes. Its aspect is one of gay insouciance, which would drive away melancholy despite oneself, and though other plants have been put to rout, one by one, by the sun's fierce glare, nothing daunted, it puts on its brightest hues, like a true apostle of cheerfulness. It has been cultivated for some time, and is highly prized in Eastern gardens, where it has earned for itself the pretty title of "humming-bird's trumpet." It is not confined to our limits, but extends southward into Mexico, and eastward to Wyoming. We have seen it flourishing in the Sierras, where it is particularly beautiful.

It is called "balsamea" by the Spanish-Californians, who use a wash of it as a remedy for cuts and bruises.

It varies greatly in the size and hairiness of its leaves, in the form of its flowers, which are broadly or narrowly funnel-form, and in the exsertion of the stamens and style. Thevar. microphyllahas a woolly pubescence, linear leaves often very small, three or four lines long, and other small leaves crowded in their axils. This is found in the south.

CALIFORNIA FUCHSIA—Zauschneria Californica.

There is no glory in star or blossomTill looked upon by a loving eye;There is no fragrance in April breezesTill breathed with joy as they wander by.—William Cullen Bryant.

—William Cullen Bryant.

Root.—A small membranous-coated corm.Leaves.—Radical; linear; equaling the slender scape.Scapes.—Three to twelve inches high, bearing an umbel of small greenish-white flowers, subtended by several small lanceolate to linear bracts.Pedicels.—Five to fifteen; two to twelve lines long.Perianth.—Almost rotate; of six segments; two or three lines long.Stamens.—Six.Ovary.—Globose; three-celled.Hab.—The Coast, from Marin County to Monterey; also inland.

The generic name of this little plant isAlliumreversed.

Though it has a coated bulb like the onion, it has none of its garlic flavor. It differs from the other umbellate-flowered genera of the Lily family in not having its flowers jointed upon their pedicels. It thus seems to be a link between the onion, on the one hand, and the beautifulBrodiæasandBloomerias, on the other. It is not at all an attractive plant, though its blossoms are pleasantly fragrant.

It is found on the borders of salt marshes and in subsaline soils in the interior, as well as upon high hills in stony soils.

Another species—M. serotina, Greene—common upon inland hills in the south, is quite a delicate, pretty flower. Its greenish-white blossoms, with dainty Nile-green anthers, are nearly an inch across, and each segment has a pale-green mid-nerve. The plant has a number of very long, slender leaves, and its flower-stems are sometimes two feet tall and very slender.

Shrubs five to eight feet high.Leaves.—Leathery; white-woolly beneath; wavy-margined.Flowers.—Of two kinds on separate shrubs; in solitary or clustered catkins; and without petals.Staminate catkins.—Two to ten inches long, consisting of a flexile chain of funnel-form bracts, depending one from another; each having six flowers like clappers. These flowers with four hairy sepals and four stamens with distinct filaments.Pistillate catkins.—Of similar structure but stouter, more rigid. Their flowers without floral envelopes; pistils two; fleshy and hairy; stigmas filiform; dark.Hab.—Near the Coast from Monterey County to Washington.

This shrub might easily be mistaken for one of our young live-oaks, with its leathery leaves and gray bark; but the leaves are opposite, and not alternate, as with the oaks. The bark and leaves have an intensely bitter principle, similar to quinine and equally efficacious.

Early in February, after the first spell of balmy weather, the bushes put forth their flowers, and then they are exceedingly beautiful. The long pale-green chains at the ends of all the branches hang limp and flexile, shaken with every breath of wind, or, falling over other branches, drape and festoon the whole shrub exquisitely. The catkins of the female shrub are stouter and more rigid than those of the male; but when the fruit is mature, they lengthen out into beautifully tinted clusters of little papery-coated grapes, which are quite attractive in themselves. This is cultivated as an ornamental shrub in England.

G. Fremonti, Torr., another species, is distinguished by having its leaves pointed at both ends, not wavy-margined, and not permanently woolly; and also by its solitary catkins. This is the shrub usually spoken of as "quinine-bush," "fever-bush," etc., and whose leaves were used as a substitute for quinine in the early days among the miners. It is said that its roots, left in the ground after the cutting of the shrub, become marbled with green, and are then very beautiful for inlaying in ornamental woodwork.

SILK-TASSEL TREE—Garrya elliptica.

Shrubs or trees, ten to one hundred feet high.Leaves.—Alternate; short-petioled; lanceolate-oblong; two to four inches long; smooth, shining green; very aromatic.Flowers.—In clusters.Sepals.—Six; greenish-white; two and a half lines long.Petals.—None.Stamens.—Nine; in three rows; the filaments of the inner row having on either side, at base, a stalked orange-colored gland.Anthers.—Four-celled; the cells opening by uplifting lids.Ovary.—One-celled. Style stout. Stigma lobed.Fruit.—Olive-like; an inch long; becoming purple.Hab.—From Oregon to San Diego.

Early in February we usually have some of our loveliest days. Life is then pulsing and throbbing everywhere at full tide. The clear sunshine, the murmur of streams, the odor of the freshly turned sod, the caroling of larks all are eloquent of the springtime. The whole air is filled with a strange, spicy fragrance which makes it a delight to breathe. The California laurel is shaking out a delicious, penetrating odor from its countless blossoms.

Mr. Sargent refers to this tree as one of the stateliest and most beautiful inhabitants of the North American forests, and one of the most striking features of the California landscape.

In France it is now much appreciated and cultivated in parks and gardens.

In Southern California it is only a shrub; but in the central and northern counties it becomes a magnificent tree, a hundred feet in height and from four to six feet in diameter. It thrives best in the rich soil along stream-banks, though it grows also upon hillsides. It would be impossible to mistake this tree for any other; for its leaves, when crushed, give out a peculiar pungent odor which, if inhaled too much, will cause headache. The odor is something like that of bay-rum. The Indians, as well as our own people, acting upon the homeopathic principle, use them as a remedy for headache. The oil is also used effectively in toothache, earache, etc., and enters into the composition of certain patent medicines.

The wood of the laurel is one of the most beautiful employed by the cabinet-maker, and it is largely used in the manufactureof choice furniture. The olive-like fruit is ripe by July, and would remain upon the tree until the next year were not the squirrels so fond of it.

This tree is known in different localities by a variety of names, such as "spice-bush," "balm of heaven," "sassafras laurel," "cajeput," "California bay-tree," "California olive," "mountain laurel," and "California laurel." But the last of these is the one prevalent where its finest forms are found.

Shrubs two to twenty feet high; branching from a thick base.Leaves.—Alternate; short-petioled; cuneate; serrate across the summit; more or less silky above; densely hoary-tomentose beneath; six to eighteen lines long.Flowers.—Mostly solitary; axillary.Calyx.—Narrowly tubular, with a deciduous campanulate five-lobed limb.Petals.—None.Stamens.—Fifteen to twenty-five; on the calyx.Ovary.—One-(rarely two-) celled. Style simple.Fruit.—An akene with a silky tail, at length becoming three or four inches long.Hab.—The Coast Ranges from Lake County to Southern California.

The mountain mahogany is a common shrub upon the interior hills of the Coast Ranges; and when one has once made its acquaintance, it is always easily recognized by its wedge-shaped, dark-green leaves, prominently veined and notched at the summit. Its flowers, having no petals, are green and inconspicuous; but the long, solitary plumes of its little fruit are very noticeable and pretty. Its wood is the heaviest and hardest we have.

Mr. Greene says that its leafy twigs have a sweet, birchy flavor, rendering them excellent food for cattle in late summer.

Stem.—Woody; climbing.Leaves.—Alternate; short-petioled; large; ovate-cordate, two to four inches long.Flowers.—Greenish, veined with purple.Perianth.—Pipe-shaped; the lobes of the lip leather-colored within.Anthers.—Six; sessile; adnate in pairs to the thick style under the broad lobes of the stigma; vertical.Stigma.—Three-lobed.Ovary.—Inferior; six-angled; six-celled.Fruit.—A large, leathery pod two inches long.Hab.—The Coast Ranges, from Monterey to Marin County.

This odd flower is found rather sparingly in our middle Coast Ranges from February to April, and in some parts of the Sierra foothills, reaching even to the Yosemite. As it flowers before the large leaves come out, and the blossoms are much like dead leaves in color, it requires keen eyes to find it. It usually grows on low ground, in a tangle of shrubs under the trees, often festooning gracefully from branch to branch. Before the flowers are fully open, the buds resemble ugly little brown ducks hanging from the vine.

The common blue-black butterfly is often seen hovering over this vine, and it is said that its caterpillar is so fond of the fruit that it rarely permits one to ripen.

Later in the season, the large cordate leaves are quite conspicuous, and cause people to wonder what may have been the flower of so fine a vine.

Depressed, hemispherical, fleshy, leafless plants, with from thirteen to twenty-one prominent, vertical ribs, bearing groups of rigid spines; usually less than a foot in diameter.Spines.—Straight or recurved; stout; reddish; transversely ribbed or ringed.Flowers.—Sessile; borne about the depressed woolly center; yellowish-green; about eighteen lines long.Sepals.—Many; closely imbricated; merging into the numerous, oblong, scarious petals; sometimes nerved with red.Stamens.—Very many.Ovary.—One-celled. Stigmas twelve to fifteen; linear.Berry.—Pulpy; green; scaly.Hab.—From San Diego inland.

DUTCHMAN'S PIPE—Aristolochia Californica.

The Turk's-head cactus looks very much like the end of a watermelon protruding from the ground, if one could imaginea watermelon deeply furrowed and furnished with very formidable spines.

This plant is abundant near San Diego, growing all over the mesas; and it is marvelous that horses and cattle are not more often injured by stepping upon these disagreeable, horrent globes; but long experience has doubtless taught them the instinct of caution.

The plant is really beautiful when crowned with its circle of gauzy, yellow-green flowers, which are more like some exquisite artificial fabrication than real flowers. The fruit of this cactus is slightly acid and rather pleasant.

The plant is cultivated in Europe under the name ofEchinocactus Californicus.

Rootstock.—Creeping; spreading.Stem.—A foot or two high; branching horizontally.Leaves.—Alternate; ovate; cordate; acute; several-nerved; two or three inches long.Flowers.—Greenish; one to six; six lines long; pendulous under the ends of the branches.Perianth.—Spreading-campanulate.Segments.—Six; lanceolate; arched at the base.Stamens.—Six; equaling or exceeding the perianth.Ovary.—Three-celled. Style slender; entire.Fruit.—An obovate, somewhat pubescent berry; golden, ripening to scarlet.Syn.—Disporum Hookeri, Britt.Hab.—The Coast Ranges from Marin County to Santa Cruz; in shady woods, but not by the water.

In our walks through the April woods, we often notice a fine plant with branching stems, whose handsomely veined leaves are set obliquely to the stem and all lie in nearly the same horizontal plane. In our subsequent meetings with the plant it seems to change but little, and we begin to grow impatient for the coming of the flower, which, however, seems to show no disposition to appear. Some day, when bending over a bit of moss or a fern-frond, or peering into the silk-lined hole of a ground-spider, we suddenly catch a glimmer of something under the broad leaves of our hitherto disappointing plant, and hastening to examine it, we find to our amazement one or more exquisitely formed little green bells hanging from the tipof each branch. Later these are often succeeded by small berries, at first golden, and afterward scarlet.

The generic name,Prosartes, comes from a Greek word signifyingto hang from, and is in allusion to the pendulous flowers. By some authorities this plant is calledDisporum Hookeri. The common name, "drops of gold," applies to the berry.

Another speciesP. Menziesii, Don.—is found growing along stream-banks in the Coast Ranges from Marin County northward. This differs from the above in its longer, more cylindrical,milk-whiteflowers, and its salmon-colored berries. It usually blossoms a little later than the other species, lasting till June.

Stems.—Rather simple; a foot or two high.Leaves.—Ample; slashed downward into long acute lobes; green above; cottony-woolly beneath; bitter; strong-scented; the upper often entire, linear or lanceolate.Flower-heads.—Minute; two lines high, one broad; composed of tubular disk-flowers only; greenish, in long, slender, crowded panicles.Hab.—Near the Coast, from San Francisco northward.

This is a common weed along our roadsides, and is easily known by its slashed leaves with silvery under surfaces. These leaves are very bitter. This is closely allied to the wormwood, and by many people is called "wormwood."

Stems.—Shrubby; four or five feet high; with many slender branches.Leaves.—Alternate; pinnately parted into three- to seven-filiform divisions; or entire and filiform; an inch or so long; strong-scented.Flower-heads.—Very small; two lines or less across; numerous, in narrow panicles; greenish; composed of tubular disk-flowers only.Hab.—Marin County to San Bernardino.

TheArtemisia, or, as it is more commonly called, "sagebrush," is an old friend that we always expect to meet in our walks on rocky hill-slopes. Its leaves have a clean, bitter fragrance, similar to that of the mugwort, but sweeter, and when crushed in the hand they emit a strong odor of turpentine.

Dr. Behr tells me that in the early days the miners laid sprays of it in their beds to drive away the fleas.

The Spanish-Californians regard it as a panacea for all ills, and use it in the form of a strong wash to bathe wounds and swellings, with excellent results.

Another species—A. tridentata, Nutt.—is the shrubby form, growing so abundantly all over the alkali plains of the Great Basin, where it holds undisputed possession with the prairie-dog and the coyote. It has narrow, wedge-shaped leaves, which are three-toothed at the apex; and the whole plant has a strong odor of turpentine.

This is highly esteemed by the Indians as a medicinal plant.

Root.—A cluster of Dahlia-like tubers.Stems.—About two feet high.Leaves.—Narrowly oblong or lanceolate; a foot long or less; acute; undulate; narrowed into a short, very thick petiole.Flowers.—Light raisin-color; in a large panicle a foot or so long.Perianth.—Of six sepals; the outer minute; the inner about five lines long, appressed to the ovary.Stamens.—Six.Ovary.—Three-angled; one-celled. Styles three; short. Stigmas tufted.Hab.—Dry, sandy plains of Southern California.

The wild pie-plant is closely related to the garden rhubarb, and also to the dock and the sorrel. In early days in both Utah and Southern California housewives used its stems as a substitute for the cultivated pie-plant, finding them quite acceptable. The Indians have long used the root in the tanning of buckskins, and they have also found in it a bright mahogany-brown dye, with which to paint their bodies.

Of late this plant has been attracting much notice under the name "canaigre," and it is hoped that it will prove a valuable substitute for tanbark. If it does, we shall hail it with delight as the savior of our beautiful oak forests. Tannin exists in large quantities in the thick roots; but it is yet a question whether it will prove remunerative to the farmer as a crop. At Rialto a company has been formed, which employs many mento gather and prepare the roots, and there will soon be thousands of acres of it under cultivation. The tops of the plants, with the small upper portions of the roots, which have all the eyes upon them, are cut off and replanted for the next year's crop, while the remainder of the root is sliced, dried, pulverized, and leached to extract the tannin, which is then ready for use.

CANAIGRE—Rumex hymenosepalus.

The plant is a very noticeable one, with its red leaf-stems and veins and its large, dense cluster of small raisin-colored flowers, and it is often seen upon our southern plains. But I am told that over the border in Lower California it grows in great abundance, covering the ground for miles. It would seem as though its cultivation might be carried on with best results where nature produces it so freely.

Densely white-woolly plants, with milky juice.Stems.—One to three feet high.Leaves.—Two to four inches long.Flowers.—Several, in a pendulous cluster on yarnlike pedicels; lateral upon the stem between the leaves.Calyx.—Five-parted; inconspicuous.Corolla.—Deeply five-parted; greenish without, pinkish within.Stamens.—Five; sunk in the column and alternating with the five hoods.Hoods.—Two lines across; saccate; open down the outer face.Ovaries.—Two; pointed; capped by a flat stigma.Fruit.—A pair of follicles; with many silken-tufted seeds.Hab.—Dry hills from San Diego to Monte Diablo.

In the south by late spring the very woolly stems and foliage of this milkweed become quite noticeable before any hint of blossoms appears. The thick, gray leaves look as though they might have been cut out of heavy flannel. By May the flower-clusters begin to take definite form, and at last the buds open and reveal a most interesting flower, whose structure is quite complicated. The center of the blossom is occupied by a fleshy column, in which are sunk the anthers, and upon which are borne certain round, dark wine-colored bodies called the "hoods," which are in reality nectaries, holding honey for insect visitors. All the pollen in each anther-cell consists of awaxy mass, and the adjacent masses of different anthers are bound together by a gummy, elastic band, suspended upon the rim of the stigma. The stigma occupies the top of the fleshy column, and forms a cap, hiding from view the two tubes, or styles, leading down into the ovaries.

HORNLESS WOOLLY MILKWEED—Gomphocarpus tomentosus.

The milkweeds of California are divided between two genera—AsclepiasandGomphocarpus,—the difference between them lying in the presence of a horn or crest rising out of the hoods inAsclepias.

Bees visiting the, blossoms of the milkweeds are said to be frequently disabled by the pollen-masses, which adhere to them in such numbers and weigh them down so heavily that they cannot climb upon their combs, but fall down and perish.

Stems.—Stout; a foot or two high; leafy.Leaves.—Four to six inches long; pointed.Flowers.—One to three; short pediceled.Sepals and petals.—Brownish; eighteen to thirty lines long; the two lower sepals united nearly to the apex.Sac.—An inch long; dull white, veined with purple.Anthers.—Two fertile (one on either side of the column); one sterile, four or five lines long, yellow, with purple spots longer than the stigma.Hab.—The mountains from Central California to the Columbia River.

The mountain lady's slipper is a rare plant with us, which affects cool, secluded spots in our mountain forests. The plants, of which two or three usually grow from a creeping rootstock, generally stand where some moisture seeps out. The leaves are ample and shapely, and the quaint flowers quiet and elegant in coloring.

The long, twisted sepals and petals and the oval sac give these blossoms the aspect of some floral daddy-long-legs or some weird brownie of the wood. We feel that we have fallen upon a rare day when we are fortunate enough to find these flowers, and we are reminded of Mr. Burroughs' lines: "How fastidious and exclusive is theCypripedium!... It does not go in herds, like the commoner plants, but affects privacyand solitude. When I come upon it in my walks, I seem to be intruding upon some very private and exclusive company."

MOUNTAIN LADY'S SLIPPER.—Cypripedium montanum.

In our Coast Ranges we may look for these blossoms in May.

We have but two or three species ofCypripedium.C. Californicum, Gray, is similar toC. montanum, but its blossoms have comparatively short greenish-yellow sepals and petals, and the sac is from white to pale rose-color. They have a more compact look, and lack the careless grace of those of the mountain lady's slipper. Their haunts are swamps in open woodlands in the northern part of the State, where they bloom in August and September, and are often found in the company of the California pitcher-plant.

Root.—An oblong tuber.Stem.—Rather slender; a foot or two high.Leaves.—Two; radical; oblong; three to six inches long; eighteen lines to two inches wide.Flowers.—Small; light green; in a dense but slender spike. Sepals and petals about equal; two lines long; obtuse.Lip.—Similar, with a filiform spur three to five lines long. (Otherwise likeH. leucostachys.)Hab.—Near the coast, from Monterey to Vancouver Island.

In early summer the fragrant spikes of the rein-orchis stand half-concealed under the trees and along the banks bordering wooded mountain roads. The little greenish flowers are inconspicuous, and reveal themselves only to those who have the habit of observation. Early in the spring the rather large lily-like leaves were far more noticeable and handsome; but they seemed to weary of waiting for the tardy arrival of the blossoms, and faded away long since. The little flowers are very deliberate about unfolding themselves; and I have sometimes watched them when they seemed for weeks at a standstill before yielding to the summer's invitation to come forth.

They are arranged in a three-sided spike, on two sides of which the long spurs interlace and cross one another in quite a warlike manner.

REIN-ORCHIS—Habenaria elegans.

The teasel is not an uncommon sight along our roadsides,having spread considerably since its introduction from Europe, some years ago. The strong stems are tall and slender, and bear at summit the large bristly cones, surrounded by rigid, erect bracts. These cones are the inflorescence of the plant, and each downward-pointing little hook is a bract beneath a flower. Before the flowers come out, the buds show their round, green heads, packed away down among the bristles. Then for a time the cones are ringed or covered by the delicate flesh-colored flowers; which stand out from the bristles, giving the cone a soft, fluffy look. After these have passed away, the cavities in which they were stored give the cone a pitted appearance. These burs are exquisitely symmetrical, and have long been in use by the fuller to "tease," or raise a nap upon cloth, whence the name, "teasel." They are cut in halves or quarters, and these are set in frames which are worked by machinery. Many vain attempts have been made to manufacture an instrument to take the place of the teasel; but it is difficult to find anything that is strong enough to do the work that at the same time will not injure the cloth.

This is enumerated among the plants which are supposedto foretell the weather. Mr. Dyer quotes the following:—

. . . "tezils, or fuller's thistle, being gathered and hanged up in the house where the air may come freely to it, upon the alteration of cold and windy weather will grow smoother, and against rain will close up its prickles."

Hab.—The Coast, from San Francisco to Oregon.

Ye marshes, how candid and simple, and nothing withholding and free,Ye publish yourselves to the sky, and offer yourselves to the sea;Tolerant plains that suffer the sea and the rains and the sun,Ye spread and span, like the catholic man who hath mightily wonGod out of knowledge, and good out of infinite pain,And sight out of blindness, and purity out of a stain.—Sidney Lanier.

—Sidney Lanier.

Though a humble enough plant in itself, the samphire, or glasswort, is the source of a wonderful glory in our marshes in the autumn. Great stretches of tide-land not already pre-empted by the tule are covered by it, showing the most gorgeous blendings of crimson, purple, olives, and bronzes, which, seen with all the added charm of shifting and changing atmospheric effects, far outrival any Oriental rug that could be conceived of.

This plant is easily known by its succulent branching, leafless stems and from the fact that it does not grow outside of the salt marshes. Its flowering is obscure, and all that can be seen is a few small stamens just protruding from the surface of the fleshy spike, which appears much like any of the other branches, the flowers being sunk in it.

The generic name is derived from two Latin words—sal, salt, andcornu, a horn—and conveys the idea of saline plants with hornlike branches. The English name, "samphire," is of French derivation, and comes originally from the old "l'herbe de Saint Pierre," formerly having been written "sampêtra" and "sampire." In Great Britain this plant is usually designated as "marshsamphire," to distinguish it from the ordinary samphire, which is a plant of the genusCrithmum.

This plant is much relished by cattle, and in England it is made into a pickle, while on the continent it is used as a pot-herb. Formerly, in Europe, it was burned in large quantities for the soda contained in its ashes.

Rootstock.—Creeping.Stems.—Leafy; one to four feet high.Leaves.—Alternate; sessile; clasping; ovate below; lanceolate above; three to eight inches long.Flowers.—Three to ten; in terminal racemes; greenish, veined with purple.Sepals.—Three; petaloid; lanceolate; an inch or less long.Petals.—The two upper about equaling the sepals. The lip concave; saccate; eared at base; with a jointed, pendulous tip.Anther.—One; sessile upon the top of the column.Ovary.—One-celled.Hab.—Throughout California.

The casual observer usually alludes to this plant as a "lady's slipper," and he is not so very far wrong, for it is closely related to theCypripedium, and resembles it much in habit, in the aspect of its leafy stems, and in the general form of its blossom. But instead of having its lip in the form of a sac, it is open and curiously jointed, the lower portion swinging freely, as upon a hinge. When this lid is raised, one can fancy some winged seraph or angel enshrined within, but when lowered the semblance is more to a monk bowed in meditation.

These beautiful plants will be found abundantly fringing our streams in June and July, and the disciples of dear old Isaac Walton who then pass down the stream with rod and line are usually attracted by their quietly elegant colors. Dull purples and greens predominate, though the lip is tinged with orange or yellow.

In Northern California and Oregon is occasionally found a rare and curious plant—the "phantom orchis,"Cephalanthera Oregana, Richenb.f. This plant is white and ghostlike throughout, has stems a foot or two high, but no leaves—only three to five scarious sheathing bracts. Its blossoms are very similar in size and shape to those ofEpipactis gigantea.

I have never had the pleasure of finding this floral oddity myself; but one season a friend sent me the only plant which was found in a thicket near a pretty camp upon the Sacramento River, in the Shasta region.

FALSE LADY'S SLIPPER—Epipactis gigantea.

Bog plants, with long horizontal rootstocks.Leaves.—Tubular; hooded and appendaged above; eighteen to thirty-four inches high.Scape.—Eighteen inches or more high, with green bracts crowded near the solitary nodding flower. Flower parts in fives.Sepals.—Green; twenty lines long.Petals.—Purplish; shorter than the sepals; constricted above into a terminal lobe.Stamens.—Twelve to fifteen in a circle around the ovary.Ovary.—Top-shaped; truncate; five-lobed; five-celled. Style five-lobed. Stigmas thickish.Hab.—The Sierras, from Truckee Pass into Oregon.

Our pitcher-plant is one of the most wonderful and interesting of all the forms that grow, linking, as it were, the vegetable world with the animal, by its unnatural carnivorous habits. If you would like to visit it, this warm July day, we will take a mountain trail, leading around under lofty yellow pines, Douglas spruces, and incense-cedars, making our way through the undergrowth until we come to a swamp lying upon a hillside yonder. While still some distance away, we can discern the yellowish-green of the myriad hoods as they lift themselves in the sunlight like spotted snakes.

If you have never seen the plant before, you will be in a fever of excitement till you can reach the spot and actually take one of the strange pitchers in your hand to examine it. Nothing could be cleverer than the nicely arranged wiles of this uncanny plant for the capturing of the innocent—yes, and of the more knowing ones—of the insect world who come within its enchantment. No ogre in his castle has ever gone to work more deliberately or fiendishly to entrap his victims while offering them hospitality, than does this plant-ogre. Attracted by the bizarre yellowish hoods or the tall nodding flowers, the foolish insect alights upon the former and commences his exploration of the fascinating region. He soon comes upon the wing, which often being smeared with a trail of sweets, acts as a guide to lure him on to the dangerous entrance to the hoodlike dome. Once within this hall of pleasure, he roams about, enjoying the hospitality spread for him. But at last, when he has partaken to satiety and wouldfain depart, he turns to retrace his steps. In the dazzlement of the translucent windows of the dome above, he loses sight of the darkened door in the floor by which he entered and flies forcibly upward, bumping his head in his eagerness to escape. He is stunned by the blow and plunged downward into the tube below. Here he struggles to rise, but countless downward-pointing, bristly hairs urge him to his fate. He sinks lower and lower in this "well of death" until he reaches the fatal waters in the bottom, where he is at length ingulfed, adding one more to the already numerous victims of this diabolical plant.

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