Part 13

It will be readily seen that the rainy season, or the winter, so-called, is the growing time of our year--the time when the earth brings forth every plant in his kind. On the other hand, the summer is the time of rest. Most of the plant-life having germinated after the first moisture of the fall, grows luxuriantly during the showery months of winter, blossoms lavishly in the balmy sunshine of early springtime, produces seed in abundance by early summer, and is then ready for its annual rest. Instead of shrouding the earth in snow during our period of plant-rest, as she does in more rigorous climes, Nature gently spreads over hill and valley a soft mantle of brown.

When the first shrill notes of the cicada are heard in late spring, we awake to a sudden realization that summer is at hand, and, looking about us, we see that the flowers have nearly all vanished; hill and valley no longer glow with great masses of color; only a few straggling species of the early summer remain; but they too are soon gone, and soft browns and straw-colors prevail everywhere. It is then that the deep, rich greens of our symmetrically rounded Live-Oaks, so characteristic of this region, show in fine contrast against this delicate background, forming a picture that every Californian dearly loves; the Madroño and the Laurel spread their canopies of grateful shade; while the Redwood affords cool retreats from the summer sun. Then our salt marshes, as though realizing the need of refreshing verdure, put on their most vivid greens; and our chaparral-covered hill-slopes make walls of bronze and olive.

* * * * *

Perhaps no coniferous forests in the world are so beautiful or so attractive as the Redwood forests of our Coast Ranges; and they play so important a part in the distribution of our plants, it will not be out of place to devote a little space to them here.

The main Redwood belt is of limited range, extending along the Coast from Monterey County to Humboldt County, and nowhere exceeding twenty miles in breadth. Straggling trees may be found beyond these limits, but nowhere a forest growth or trees of great size. In its densest portion, the stately and colossal trees are too close together to permit of a wagon passing between them.

Mr. Purdy writes: "The Redwood is not only a lover of moisture, but to an extent hardly to be believed, unless seen, a condenser and conserver of moisture. Their tops reach high into the sea of vapor, and a constant precipitation from them, like rain, takes place. The water stands in puddles in the roads under them. This causes the densest of undergrowth; hazels, huckleberries, various Ceanothi, ferns of large size and in greatest profusion, large bushes of rhododendron, and numerous other plants make the forest floor a perfect tangle in moister portions."

Many charming plants find their homes amid the cool shade of these noble trees. Trillium, and scoliopus, and dog's-tooth violets vie with clintonias and vancouverias in elegance and grace, while little creeping violets, and the lovely redwood-sorrel, and the salal make charming tapestries over the forest floor about these dim cathedral columns.

On the other hand, the open forest belts of the Sierras, which are of far greater extent, present another and quite different flora from that of the Coast Range and the Redwood belt. There may be found many interesting plants of the Heath family--cassiope, bryanthus, chimaphila, ledum, various pyrolas, and the snow-plant; there the aconite, false hellebore, eriogonums and gentians, and new and beautiful pentstemons and Mimuli and lilies deck the meadows and stream-banks.

After the season of blossoming is over in the lowlands, we may pass on up into the mountains and live again through a vernal springtime of flowers.

Perhaps in no country in the world does the arrival of the spring flowers "so transform the face of Nature as in California." The march of civilization has brought changes in its wake; the virgin soil has been broken and subdued into grainfields and vineyards; still enough of the lavish blossoming is left us to appreciate Mr. Muir's description of the face of the country as it appeared years ago. He says: "When California was wild, it was one sweet bee-garden throughout its entire length, north and south, and all the way across from the snowy Sierra to the ocean.... The Great Central Plain ... during the months of March, April, and May was one smooth, continuous bed of honey-bloom, so marvelously rich that in walking from one end of it to the other, a distance of four hundred miles, your foot would press about a hundred flowers at every step. Mints, gilias, nemophilas, castilleias, and innumerable Compositae were so crowded together, that had ninety-nine per cent of them been taken away, the plain would still have seemed to any but Californians extravagantly flowery. The radiant, honeyful corollas, touching and overlapping and rising above one another, glowed in the living light like a sunset sky--one sheet of purple and gold.... Sauntering in any direction, hundreds of these happy sun-plants brushed against my feet at every step and closed over them as if I were wading in liquid gold. The air was sweet with fragrance, the larks sang their blessed songs, rising on the wing as I advanced, then sinking out of sight in the polleny sod; while myriads of wild bees stirred the lower air with their monotonous hum--monotonous, yet forever fresh and sweet as everyday sunshine."

PRELUDE

O LAND OF THE WEST! I know How the field-flowers bud and blow, And the grass springs and the grain To the first soft touch and summons of the rain! O, the music of the rain! O, the music of the streams!

--INA D. COOLBRITH.

Toward the end of our long cloudless summer, after most other flowers have stolen away, Mother Nature marshals her great order of Compositae for a last rally; and they come as welcome visitants to fill the places of our vanished summer friends.

Asters and goldenrods, grindelias, lessingias, and the numerous tarweeds, with their cheerful blossoms, relieve the sober browns of sun-dried hill-slopes and meadows, or fringe with color our roadsides and salt marshes.

But even these late-comers weary after a time, and one by one disappear, till there comes a season when, without flowers, Nature seems to be humbled in sackcloth and ashes. The dust lies thick upon roadside trees, a haze hangs like a veil in the air, and the sun beats down with fierce, continued glare.

As this wears on day after day, a certain vague expectancy creeps gradually over the face of things--a rapt, mysterious aspect, foreboding change. One day there is a telltale clarity in the atmosphere. Later, the sky darkens by degrees, and a dull, leaden hue spreads over the vault of heaven. Nature mourns, and would weep. Her heart is full to bursting; still the tears come not. The winds spring up and blow freshly over the parched land. A few hard-wrung drops begin to fall, and at length there closes down a thoroughgoing shower. The flood-gates are opened at last; the long tension is over, and we breathe freely once more.

During this first autumn rain, those of us who are so fortunate as to live in the country are conscious of a strange odor pervading all the air. It is as though Dame Nature were brewing a vast cup of herb tea, mixing in the fragrant infusion all the plants dried and stored so carefully during the summer.

When the clouds vanish after this baptismal shower, everything is charmingly fresh and pure, and we have some of the rarest of days. Then the little seeds, harbored through the long summer in Earth's bosom, burst their coats and push up their tender leaves, till on hillside and valley-floor appears a delicate mist of green, which gradually confirms itself into a soft, rich carpet--and all the world is in verdure clad. Then we begin to look eagerly for our first flowers.

FLOWER DESCRIPTIONS

A FANCY

I think I would not be A stately tree, Broad-boughed, with haughty crest that seeks the sky. Too many sorrows lie In years, too much of bitter for the sweet: Frost-bite, and blast, and heat, Blind drought, cold rains, must all grow wearisome, Ere one could put away Their leafy garb for aye, And let death come.

Rather this wayside flower! To live its happy hour Of balmy air, of sunshine, and of dew. A sinless face held upward to the blue; A bird-song sung to it, A butterfly to flit On dazzling wings above it, hither, thither,-- A sweet surprise of life,--and then exhale A little fragrant soul on the soft gale, To float--ah! whither?

--INA D. COOLBRITH.

White or occasionally or partially white flowers not described in the White Section.

Described in the Yellow Section:--

ANAGALLIS ARVENSIS--Pimpernel.

BRODIAEA LACTEA--White Brodiaea.