Part 23

COMMON ELDER.

Sambucus glauca, Nutt. Honeysuckle Family.

Shrubby or arborescent; often thirty feet high; with finely fissured bark. Leaves.--Opposite; petioled; pinnate. Leaflets.--Three to nine; lanceolate; acuminate; serrate; two inches or so long; smooth. Flowers.--Minute; two or three lines across; in large, flat, five-branched cymes; white. Calyx.--Five-toothed. Corolla.--Rotate; five-lobed. Stamens.--Five; alternate with the corolla lobes. Ovary.--Three- to five-celled. Stigmas of same number. Berries.--Small; dark blue, with a dense white bloom. Hab.--Throughout the State; common.

The elder is one of our most widely distributed shrubs, and is a familiar sight upon almost every open glade or plain. It is especially abundant in the south. Its flower-clusters, made up of myriads of tiny cream-white blossoms, make a showy but delicate and lacelike mat, while its berries are beautiful and inviting. The bears are especially appreciative of these, and we have sometimes seen their footprints leading along a lonely mountain road to the elder-berry bushes. The fruit is prized by our housewives for pies and preserves, and it would doubtless make as good wine as that of the Eastern species.

Among the Spanish-Californians the blossoms are known as "sauco" and are regarded as an indispensable household remedy for colds. They are administered in the form of a tea, which induces a profuse perspiration. It is said that Dr. Boerhaave held the elder in such reverence for the multitude of its virtues, that he always removed his hat when he passed it.

In ancient times the elder was the subject of many strange superstitions. In his interesting book, "The Folk-Lore of Plants," Mr. Thistleton Dyer says that it was reputed to be possessed of magic power, and that any baptized person whose eyes had been anointed with the green juice of its inner bark could recognize witches anywhere. Owing to these magic properties, it was often planted near dwellings to keep away evil spirits. By making a magic circle and standing within it with elder-berries gathered on St. John's Night, the mystic fern-seed could be secured which possessed the strength of forty men and enabled one to walk invisible. This was one of the trees suspected as having furnished wood for the Cross; and to this day the English country people believe themselves safe from lightning when standing under an elder, because lightning never strikes the tree of which the Cross was made.

COULTER'S SNAPDRAGON.

Antirrhinum Coulterianum, Benth. Figwort Family.

Stems.--Two to four feet high; smooth below. Leaves.--Linear to oval; distant. Tendril-shoots long and slender, produced mostly below the flowers. Flowers.--White or violet; in densely crowded villous-pubescent spikes, two to ten inches long. (Otherwise as A. vagans.) Hab.--Santa Barbara to San Diego.

The flowers of this pretty snapdragon are usually white, and the lower lip, with its great palate often dotted with dark color, takes up the major part of the blossom. They are sometimes violet, however, when they much resemble the flowers of the toad-flax, but are without their long spur.

A. Orcuttianum, Gray, is a similar species, but more slender, with fewer and smaller flowers, whose lower lip is not much larger than the upper, and whose flower-spikes are disposed to have the tortile branchlets in their midst. This is found near San Diego and southward.

HELIOTROPE.

Heliotropium Curassavicum, L. Borage Family.

Diffusely spreading; six to twelve inches high. Leaves.--Alternate; sessile; obovate to linear; an inch or two long; succulent; glaucous. Flowers.--Usually white, sometimes lavender; in dense, usually two-forked spikes. Calyx.--Five-parted. Corolla.--Salver-form; border five-lobed, with plaited sinuses; three lines across. Stamens.--Five. Anthers sessile. Ovary.--Of four seedlike nutlets. Stigma umbrella-like. Hab.--Widely distributed.

This, the only species of true heliotrope common within our borders, is widely distributed over the world. It affects the sand of the seashore or saline soils of the interior. It is in no way an attractive plant, as compared with our garden heliotrope, as its flowers have a washed-out look and are not at all fragrant, while its pale stems and foliage lack color and character.

Its leaves, which contain a mucilaginous juice, are dried and reduced to powder by the Spanish-Californians, who esteem them very highly as a cure for the wounds of men and animals. They blow the dry powder into the wound.

HOREHOUND.

Marrubium vulgare, Linn. Mint Family.

The horehound has been introduced from Europe at various points along our Coast, but it is now so abundant as to seem like an indigenous plant. It has many white-woolly, square stems, and roundish, wrinkly opposite leaves, covered beneath with matted, white-woolly hairs. Its small, white, bilabiate flowers are crowded in the axils of the upper leaves so densely as to appear like whorls. It may be known from the other members of the Mint family by its campanulate calyx with ten strong, recurved teeth.

This has long been used in medicine as a tonic, and is especially esteemed by our Spanish-Californians as a remedy for colds and lung troubles.

WHITE EVENING PRIMROSE.

OEnothera Californica, Watson. Evening-Primrose Family.

Hoary pubescent, and more or less villous. Stems.--A foot or so high. Leaves.--Oblanceolate or lanceolate; sinuately toothed or irregularly pinnatifid; two to four inches long. Flowers.--White; turning to rose-color; two inches across. Ovary and Calyx-tube.--Over three inches long. Calyx-lobes.--One inch long; separate at the tips. (See OEnothera for flower-structure.) Hab.--Central and Southern California; especially about the San Bernardino region; not plentiful.

Perhaps the most beautiful of all our evening primroses is this charming white species. Late in the afternoon the handsome silvery foliage begins to show the great white, opening moons of the fragile blossoms. Their silken texture, delicate fragrance, and chaste look make them paramount among blossoms.

It is a most interesting sight to watch the opening of one of the nodding silvery buds. I sat down by one which had already uplifted its head. The calyx-lobes had just commenced to part in the center, showing the white, silken corolla tightly rolled within. It grew larger from moment to moment, when suddenly the calyx-lobes parted with a jerk, and the petals, freed from their bondage, quickly spread wider and wider, as though some spirit within were forcing its way out, while one after another the calyx-lobes were turned downward with a quick, decisive movement. It was a wonderful exhibition of the power of motion in plants. I could now look within and see a magical tangle of yellow anthers delicately draped with cobwebby ropes of pollen.

The stamens take a downward curve toward the lower petal. The anthers have already opened their stores of golden pollen before the unfurling of the buds, so that the somewhat sticky ropes are all ready to adhere to the first moth who visits the flower in search of the delicious and abundant nectar stored in the depths of the long calyx-tube. The day following their opening the blossoms begin to turn to a delicate pink, and the calyx-lobes have a fleshlike look.

EVENING SNOW.

Gilia dichotoma, Benth. Phlox or Polemonium Family.