Part 21

P. demissa, Walpers,--the wild cherry or choke-cherry,--is found upon mountains throughout the State, but less abundantly near the coast. Its small white flowers grow in racemes three or four inches long, and these ripen into the pretty shining black cherries, half an inch in diameter. It often covers acres upon acres of rough land, and commences to bear when but two feet high.

Housewives of our mountain districts make a marmalade of the fruit, which has a peculiarly delicious, tart flavor.

ELLISIA.

Ellisia chrysanthemifolia, Benth. Baby-eyes or Waterleaf Family.

More or less hairy. Stems.--Loosely branching; a foot or so high. Leaves.--Mostly opposite; auricled at base; twice- or thrice-parted into many short, small lobes. Flowers.--In loose racemes; white; three lines or so across. Calyx.--Five-cleft; without appendages at the sinuses; almost equaling the corolla. Corolla.--Open-campanulate; having ten minute scales at base within. Stamens.--Five. Ovary.--One-celled; globose. Style slender; two-cleft. Hab.--San Francisco to San Diego.

These little plants, with delicately dissected leaves, are common in moist, shaded localities; but, unfortunately, their foliage has a very strong odor, which just escapes being agreeable. Their general aspect is somewhat similar to that of some of the small species of Nemophila; but the lack of appendages upon the calyx reveals their separate identity. It blooms freely from March to June, and is especially abundant southward.

MADROÑO. MADRONE.

Arbutus Menziesii, Pursh. Heath Family.

Shrubs or trees. Leaves.--Alternate; petioled; oblong; entire or serrulate; four inches or so long. Flowers.--White; waxen; in large clusters. Calyx.--Five-cleft; minute; white. Corolla.--Broadly urn-shaped; three lines long; with five minute, recurved teeth. Stamens.--Ten; on the corolla. Filaments dilated; bearded. Anthers two-celled; saccate; opening terminally; furnished with a pair of reflexed horns near the summit. Ovary.--Five-celled. Style rather long. Fruit.--A cluster of scarlet-orange berries, with rough granular coats. Hab.--Puget Sound to Mexico and Texas; specially in the Coast Ranges.

Captain of the Western wood, Thou that apest Robin Hood! Green above thy scarlet hose, How thy velvet mantle shows; Never tree like thee arrayed, O thou gallant of the glade!

When the fervid August sun Scorches all it looks upon, And the balsam of the pine Drips from stem to needle fine, Round thy compact shade arranged, Not a leaf of thee is changed!

When the yellow autumn sun Saddens all it looks upon, Spreads its sackcloth on the hills, Strews its ashes in the rills, Thou thy scarlet hose dost doff, And in limbs of purest buff Challengest the somber glade For a sylvan masquerade.

Where, oh where shall he begin Who would paint thee, Harlequin? With thy waxen, burnished leaf, With thy branches' red relief, With thy poly-tinted fruit, In thy spring or autumn suit,-- Where begin, and oh, where end,-- Thou whose charms all art transcend?

--BRET HARTE.

The name "madroño" was applied by the early Spanish-Californians to this tree because of its strong resemblance and close relationship to the Arbutus unido, or strawberry-tree of the Mediterranean countries, which was called madroño in Spain.

Our madroño, though but a large shrub in the south, increases in size northward, and reaches its maximum development in Marin County, where there are some superb specimens of it. One tree upon the shores of Lake Lagunitas measures more than twenty-three feet in circumference and a hundred feet in height, and sends out many large branches, each two or three feet in diameter.

A large part of the forest growth on the northern slopes of Mt. Tamalpais is composed of it; and as it is an evergreen, it forms a mountain wall of delightful and refreshing green the year around. The bark on the younger limbs, which is of a rich Indian red, begins to peel off in thin layers about midsummer, leaving a clear, smooth, greenish-buff surface, and strewing the forest floor with its warm shreds, which mingling with the exquisite tones of its ripened leaves, which have fallen at about the same time, make a carpet equal in beauty of coloring to that under the English beeches. It is thoroughly patrician in all its parts. The leaves which are clustered at the ends of the slender twigs are rich, polished green above, and somewhat paler beneath.

In the spring it puts forth great panicles of small, white, waxen bells, which call the bees to a sybaritic feast, and in the autumn it spreads a no less inviting repast in its great clusters of fine scarlet berries for the blue pigeons who visit it in large flocks.

The wood of the madrone is hard and close-grained, of a light brown, shaded with red, with lighter-colored sap-wood. It is used in the manufacture of furniture, but is particularly valuable for the making of charcoal to be used in the composition of gunpowder. The bark is sometimes used in tanning leather.

WILD WHITE LILAC.

Ceanothus velutinus, Dougl. Buckthorn Family.

Widely branching shrubs, two to six feet or more high. Leaves.--Alternate; petioled; roundish, or broadly ovate; eighteen lines to three inches long; polished, resinous above; somewhat pubescent beneath; strongly three-nerved. Flowers.--White; three lines across; in large, dense, compound clusters four or five inches long and wide. (See Ceanothus for flower structure.) Hab.--Coast Ranges; Columbia River, southward to San Francisco Bay; also eastward to Colorado.

Its ample bright-green, highly varnished leaves and large white flower-clusters make this a very beautiful species of Ceanothus. The foliage is glutinous with a gummy exudation, which has a rather disagreeable odor. Yet the shrub would be very handsome in cultivation.

WHITE NEMOPHILA.

Nemophila atomaria, Fisch. and Mey. Baby-eyes or Waterleaf Family.

Corolla.--Pure white, closely dark-dotted nearly to the edge; an inch or less across; densely hairy within the tube. Scales of the corolla narrow, with long hairs. (Otherwise as N. insignis.) Hab.--Central California.

This delicate Nemophila haunts wet, springy places among the hills, and is at its best in early spring. There are a number of small-flowered forms of Nemophila which have been hitherto referred to N. parviflora, but which the future will probably prove to constitute a number of species.

N. maculata, Benth., found in Middle California and the High Sierras, is a charming form, with large flowers, whose petals bear strong violet blotches at the top.