Part 19

Lathyrus vestitus, Nutt. Pea Family.

Stems.--One to ten feet high; slender; not winged. Leaves.--Alternate; with small semi-sagittate stipules; pinnate, with four to six pairs of leaflets; tendril-bearing at the summit. Leaflets.--Ovate-oblong to linear; six to twelve lines long; acute. Flowers.--White, pale rose or violet; seven to ten lines long. Lower Calyx-teeth.--About equaling the tube. Corolla.--Papilionaceous; the standard veined with purple in the center. Stamens.--Nine united; one free. Ovary.--Flattened; pubescent. Style hairy down the inner side. (See Leguminosae.) Hab.--Sonoma County to San Diego.

The genus Lathyrus, which contains the beautiful sweet pea of the garden, affords us several handsome wild species, but most of them are difficult of determination, and many of them are as yet much confused. This genus is quite closely related to Vicia, but, in general, the leaflets are broader, the flowers are larger, and the style is hairy down the inner side as well as at the tip.

Lathyrus vestitus is the common wild pea of the south. It is quite plentiful, and clambers over and under shrubs, hanging out its occasional clusters of rather large pale flowers.

L. Torreyi, Gray, found from Santa Clara County to Napa in dry woods, is a slender plant, having from one to three small white or pinkish flowers. It is remarkable for and easily distinguished by its very fragrant foliage.

WILD CUCUMBER. BIG-ROOT. CHILICOTHE.

Echinocystis fabacea, Naudin. Gourd Family.

Tendril-bearing vines, ten to thirty feet long. Root.--Enormous; woody. Leaves.--Palmately five- to seven-lobed; three to six inches broad. Flowers.--Yellowish white; monoecious. Calyx-tube.--Campanulate; teeth small or none. Corolla.--Five- to seven-lobed; three to six lines across. Staminate Flowers.--Five to twenty in racemes; their stamens two and a half, with short connate filaments and somewhat horizontal anthers. Pistillate Flowers.--Solitary; from the same axils as the racemes. Ovary.--Two- to four-celled. Fruit.--Two inches long; prickly. Syn.--Megarrhiza Californica, Torr. Hab.--Near the coast, from San Diego to Point Reyes.

The wild cucumber is one of our most graceful native vines. It drapes many an unsightly stump, or clambers up into shrubs, embowering them with its pretty foliage. Seeing its rather delicate ivy-like habit above ground, one would never dream that it came from a root as large as a man's body, buried deep in the earth. From this root, it has received two of its common names, "big-root" and "man-in-the-ground." Sometimes this may be seen upon the ocean beach or rolling about in the breakers, where it has been liberated by the wearing away of the cliffs. It is intensely bitter.

The seeds have a very interesting method of germinating. The two large radical leaves remain underground, sending up the terminal shoot only. They are so tender and succulent that they would be eaten forthwith, if they showed themselves above the ground. An oil expressed from the roasted seeds has been used by the Indians to promote the growth of the hair.

Authorities have differed about the classification of these plants, and they have been variously called Megarrhiza, Micrampelis, and Echinocystis, the latter being latest approved. We have several species. One common in the South is E. macrocarpa, Greene. This has a large oval, prickly ball, four inches or so long. When mature, this opens at the top, splitting into several segments, which gradually roll downward, like the petals of a beautiful white lily, showing their pure-white inner surfaces and leaving exposed the four cells in the center, with lacelike walls, in which nestle the large, handsome dark seeds. These seeds are often beautifully mottled and colored, and in the early days served the Spanish-Californian children for marbles.

WHITE LAYIA. WHITE DAISY.

Layia glandulosa, Hook. and Arn. Composite Family.

Stems.--Six to twelve inches high; loosely branching; hairy; often reddish. Leaves.--Sessile; linear; the upper all small and entire; the lower often lanceolate and incised pinnatifid. Heads.--Usually large and showy. Ray-flowers.--Bright, pure white, sometimes rose-color; eight to thirteen; three-lobed; an inch or less long; six lines wide. Disk-flowers.--Golden yellow; five-toothed. Each scale of the involucre clasping a ray-flower. Hab.--Columbia River to Los Angeles.

These white daisies, as they are commonly called in the south, cover the fields and plains in early spring, jostling one another in friendly proximity and stretching away in an endless perspective. They are of a charming purity, and to me are more attractive than their sisters, the tidy-tips.

They love a sandy soil, and I have seen them flourishing in the disintegrated granite of old river-beds, where the dazzling whiteness of the stones was hardly distinguishable from the blossoms. The involucre is thickly studded with curious little glands, resembling small glass-headed pins.

BED-STRAW. GOOSE-GRASS. CLEAVERS.

Galium Aparine, L. Madder Family.

Climbing by the prickly stem-angles and leaf-margins. Stems.--Weak; one to four feet long. Leaves.--In whorls of six to eight; linear oblanceolate; one inch long. Peduncles.--Elongated; one- to two-flowered. Flowers.--Minute; one line across; greenish-white. Calyx-tube.--Adnate to the ovary; limb obsolete. Corolla.--Mostly four-cleft. Stamens.--Four. Ovary.--Two-lobed, two-celled. Styles two, short. Stigmas, capitate. Fruit.--Two or three lines across, covered with hooked bristles. Hab.--Throughout the State.

All through our moist woodlands, in early spring, the long stems of the bed-straw may be found, running about upon the ground or entangled amid the stems of other plants. The angles of these weak stems and the leaf-margins and midribs are all clothed with small backward-pointing bristles, which make the plants cling to surrounding objects. The flowers are greenish and minute, and are followed by tiny prickly balls.

A cold infusion of this little plant is used as a domestic remedy in cases of fever, where a cooling drink is desired.

The genus has received the common name of "bed-straw," because it was supposed that one of the species, G. verum, filled the manger in which was laid the Infant Jesus. There are a dozen or so species in California.

Very conspicuous all through the south is G. angustifolium, Nutt., often three feet high, sending up very numerous slender, feathery stems from a woody base. This has its small leaves in whorls of four.

MOUNTAIN HEART'S-EASE.

Viola Beckwithii, Torr. and Gray. Violet Family.

Leaves.--Broadly cordate in outline; three-parted; the divisions cleft into linear or oblong segments. Peduncles.--About equaling the leaves. Petals.--Four to seven lines long; very broad; the upper deep purple, the others lilac, bluish, or white, veined with purple, with a yellowish base; the lateral bearded; the lowest emarginate. Stigma.--Bearded at the sides. Capsule.--Obtuse. (Otherwise as V. pedunculata.) Hab.--The Central Sierras.

"By scattered rocks and turbid waters shifting, By furrowed glade and dell, To feverish men thy calm, sweet face uplifting, Thou stayest them to tell

"The delicate thought that cannot find expression-- For ruder speech too fair,-- That, like thy petals, trembles in possession, And scatters on the air."