Part 20

The poet, with a delicate insight, has made this mountain flower the reminder to the rugged miner of home and scenes far away. But the vision lasts but for a moment only; then, as he brushes away a tear, his uplifted pick--

"Through root and fiber cleaves-- And on the muddy current slowly drifting Are swept thy bruised leaves.

"And yet, O poet! in thy homely fashion, Thy work thou dost fulfill; For on the turbid current of his passion Thy face is shining still."

POP-CORN FLOWER.

WHITE FORGET-ME-NOT. NIEVITAS.

Borage Family.

The wild white forget-me-nots are among our most welcome flowers. Though not showy, taken singly, they often cover the fields, presenting the appearance of a light snowfall, from which fact the Spanish-Californians have bestowed the pretty name "nievitas," the diminutive of nieve, snow.

Their chief charm often lies in their pure, delightful fragrance, which recalls the days of our careless, happy childhood. Children are keen observers of flowers, and are among their most appreciative lovers, and with them these modest, chaste little blossoms are special favorites.

There are many species, and even genera, and their determination is beset with serious difficulties. It requires endless study and patience to disentangle the facts about any one of them. They are comprised under several genera, Krynitzkia, Plagiobothrys, Eritrichium, Piptocalyx, etc. Some have fragrant flowers and some have not. Children of the south call them "pop-corn flowers."

WHIPPLEA.

Whipplea modesta, Torr. Saxifrage Family.

Slender, diffuse, hairy undershrubs. Leaves.--Opposite; short-petioled; ovate; toothed or entire; an inch or less long; three-nerved. Flowers.--White; barely three lines across; in small terminal clusters. Calyx.--White; five-cleft. Petals.--Five. Stamens.--Usually ten. Filaments awl-shaped. Ovary.--Three- to five-celled, globose. Styles of the same number. Hab.--Coast Ranges from Monterey to Mendocino County.

Under the redwoods, or in moist cañons in their vicinity, may be found this pretty undershrub trailing over banks or brushwood. In April its exquisite little clusters of pure white flowers, with a pleasant fragrance, make their appearance, and the plants have then been sometimes mistaken for a species of Ceanothus.

WOODLAND STAR OF BETHLEHEM.

Tellima affinis, Bolander. Saxifrage Family.

Stems.--Slender; six to twenty inches high. Root-leaves.--Round-reniform; scalloped; rarely an inch across. Stem-leaves.--Three to five; ternately cleft; variously toothed. Flowers.--White; in a loose raceme; nine lines across. Calyx.--Small; campanulate; five-toothed. Petals.--Five; wedge-shaped, with three acute lobes. Stamens.--Ten. Filaments very short. Ovary.--One-celled. Styles, three, short, stout. Stigmas, capitate. Hab.--Shady places almost throughout the State.

"Star of Bethlehem" is the common name by which many of our children know this fragile flower. Its slender stems rise from many a mossy bank, upbearing their few delicately slashed, pure-white stars, which seem to shed a gentle radiance about them upon the woodland scene.

WILD BUCKWHEAT.

Eriogonum fasciculatum, Bentham. Buckwheat Family.

Shrubby; very leafy. Leaves.--Alternate; nearly sessile; narrowly oblanceolate; acute; tomentose beneath; glabrous above; three to nine lines long; much fascicled. Flowers.--White or pinkish; in densely crowded compound clusters; several perianths contained in the involucres. Involucres.--Campanulate; five- or six-nerved and toothed; two lines high. Perianth.--Minute; of six nearly equal segments. (See Eriogonum umbellatum.) Hab.--Santa Barbara and southward; east to Arizona.

The wild buckwheat is a characteristic feature of the southern landscape. It is a charming plant when in full bloom, and its feathery clusters of pinkish-white flowers show finely against the warm olive tones of its foliage. It is a very important honey plant, as it yields an exceptionally pure nectar and remains in bloom a long time. Growing near the sea, it is often close-cropped and shorn by the wind, and then it quite closely resembles the Adenostoma, or chamisal.

Another very widely distributed and common species is E. nudum, Dougl. Every one is familiar with its tall, green, naked, rushlike stems, bearing on the ends of the branchlets the small balls of white or pinkish flowers. Its leaves are all radical, smooth green above and densely white-woolly beneath.

SIERRA PLUM. WILD PLUM.

Prunus subcordata, Benth. Rose Family.

Trees or shrubs three to ten feet high, with ash-gray bark and branchlets occasionally spinescent. Leaves.--Short-petioled; ovate; sharply and finely serrate; an inch or two long. Umbels.--Two- to four-flowered. Pedicels three to six lines long. Flowers.--White; six lines across. Fruit.--Red or purple; six to fifteen lines long; fleshy; smooth. (Otherwise as P. ilicifolia.) Hab.--Mostly eastward of the Central Valley, from San Felipe into Oregon.

The wild plum reaches its greatest perfection in the north, where the shrubs are found in extensive groves covering whole mountain slopes.

The flowers, which are produced before the leaves, from March to May, are white, fading to rose-color. By August and September, the bushes are loaded with the handsome fruit, richly mottled with red, yellow, and purple; and these colors are duplicated in the autumn foliage, which in the North becomes very brilliant.

This fruit is excellent for canning, preserving, and making into jelly. Many families make annual pilgrimages to these wild-plum orchards of the mountains and carry away bushels of the fruit; but even then countless tons of it go to waste.