Part 31

One of the most deservedly admired of all our shrubs is the lovely Californian azalea. In June and July, the borders of our mountain streams are covered for miles with the bushes, whose rich green foliage is often almost obscured from view by the magnificent clusters of white and yellow, or sometimes pinkish, flowers. Its delicious, spicy perfume is always subtly suggestive of charming days spent with rod and line along cool streams, or of those all too brief outings spent far from the haunts of men, in some sequestered mountain-cabin among redwood groves or by rushing waters.

In Oregon it is commonly known as "honeysuckle," and there in the autumn its life ebbs away in a flood of glory, showering the forest floor with flecks of scarlet and crimson. Its root is said to contain a strong narcotic poison, and the leaves are also reputed to be poisonous if eaten, but they are not at all harmful to the touch.

AMERICAN BARRENWORT.

Vancouveria parviflora, Greene. Barberry Family.

Stems.--One or two feet high. Leaves.--All radical; twice to thrice ternately compound. Leaflets.--One to two inches broad; rich shining green; persisting; undulate and membrane-margined. Flowers.--Twenty-five to fifty, in loose panicles; small; with six to nine sepal-like bracts. Parts in sixes all in front of one another. Sepals.--Petaloid; two lines long. Petals.--White to lavender. Stamens.--Erect; closely appressed to the pistil. Ovary.--One-celled. Style stoutish. Hab.--Coast Ranges of Central California.

There is no more exquisite plant in our coast woods than the American barrenwort. Its delicate threadlike stems, which are yet strong and wiry, hold up its spreading evergreen leaves, every leaflet in its own place. There is a likeness in these leaves to the fronds of our Californian maidenhair, and one could easily imagine the maidenhair amplified, strengthened, and polished into this form. The leaflets are also somewhat ivy-like in form.

In June its delicate, airy panicles of small white blossoms appear. These are especially interesting as belonging to the Barberry family, where all the floral organs stand in front of one another, and the anthers open by cunningly contrived little uplifting valves. These plants are said to grow upon bushy hillsides, in masses sometimes several feet across. But I have never seen it with other than an exclusive and rather solitary habit, growing in shaded forests. We have one or two other species.

SERVICE-BERRY. JUNE-BERRY.

Amelanchier alnifolia, Nutt. Rose Family.

Deciduous shrubs, three to eight feet high. Leaves.--Alternate; petioled; from rounded to oblong-ovate; serrate usually only toward the apex; six to eighteen lines long. Flowers.--White, in short racemes. Calyx-tube.--Campanulate; limb five-parted. Petals.--Five; oblong; six lines or so long. Stamens.--Twenty; short. Ovary.--Three- to five-celled. Styles three to five. Fruit.--Small; berry-like; dark purple. Hab.--Throughout the State and northward; also eastward to the Western States.

The service-berry seems to be at home throughout our borders, but it reaches its greatest perfection north of us, on the rich bottom-lands of the Columbia River. In spring the bushes are beautiful, when snowily laden with masses of ragged white flowers; and from June to September they are no less welcome, when abundantly hung with the black berries, which usually have a bloom upon them. These berries are an important article of food among our Western Indians, who make annual pilgrimages to the regions of their growth, gathering and drying large quantities for winter use. The drying they effect by crushing them to a paste, which they spread upon bark or stones in the sun. It is said that many a party of explorers, lost in the woods, has been kept alive by this little fruit.

Almost the same shrub in the Atlantic States is called "shad-bush," because it blooms at about the season when the shad are running up the streams.

CHRISTMAS-BERRY. CALIFORNIAN HOLLY. TOYON.

Heteromeles arbutifolia, Roemer. Rose Family.

Shrubs four to twenty-five feet high. Leaves.--Alternate; short-petioled; oblong; serrate; leathery; two to four inches long. Flowers.--Small; white; four lines across; in dense terminal panicles. Calyx.--Five-toothed. Petals.--Five; roundish; spreading. Stamens.--Ten; on the calyx. Filaments awl-shaped; flat. Ovaries.--Two; one-celled. Styles slender. Berries.--Red; four lines in diameter; in large clusters. Hab.--Coast Ranges, from San Diego to Mendocino County.

Christmas could hardly be celebrated among us without our beautiful Californian holly. Florists' windows and the baskets of street-venders at that season are gay with the magnificent clusters of rich cardinal berries, which are really ripe by Thanksgiving. The common name, "Californian holly," refers more to the berries than to the leaves, as the latter have not the form of holly-leaves. We have often seen the venders mix the berries with the prickly foliage of the live-oak, to make them seem more like holly.

The large clusters of spicy white flowers appear in July and August. Nothing in all our flora yields a finer contrast of lavish scarlet against rich green. The berries have a rather pleasant taste, somewhat acid and astringent, and are eaten by the Indians with great relish. The Spanish-Californians used them in the preparation of an agreeable drink.

This is a very handsome shrub in cultivation.

VIRGIN'S BOWER. CLEMATIS.

Clematis ligusticifolia, Nutt. Buttercup or Crowfoot Family.

Nearly smooth. Stems.--Woody; sometimes climbing thirty feet. Leaves.--Opposite; long-petioled; five-foliolate. Leaflets.--Ovate to lanceolate; eighteen lines to three inches long; three-lobed and coarsely toothed; rarely entire or three-parted. Flowers.--Dioecious; in axillary panicles. Sepals.--Four; petaloid; four to six lines long; thin. Petals.--Wanting. Stamens.--Numerous. Pistils.--Many; becoming long-tailed, silky akenes. Hab.--Widely distributed.

The virgin's bower usually looks down upon us from among the branches of some tree, where it entwines itself indistinguishably with the foliage of its host. It climbs by means of the stalks of its leaflets, which wrap themselves about small twigs. This species is not so noticeable during the season of its blossoming as it is later, when the long plumes of its seed have twisted themselves into silvery balls, making feathery masses. Mrs. Blochman writes that among the Spanish-Californians, it is called "yerba de chivato," and valued as a remedy for barbed-wire cuts in animals. It is used in the form of a wash, and remarkable cures are effected.

Another widespread species--C. lasiantha, Nutt.--is far more showy than the above. It is found in the Coast Ranges, from Los Angeles to Napa County at least, and in the Sierras to Plumas County. Its long-peduncled flowers are solitary; but they are so numerous and grow so closely together, that they make dense masses of white, conspicuous at a long distance. The flowers are larger, the sepals being an inch long, and covered with a silky pubescence, which makes them like soft cream-colored velvet. The three ovate leaflets are also silky.

LADIES' TRESSES.

Spiranthes Romanzoffianum, Cham. Orchis Family.

Roots.--Fascicled tubers. Stems.--Stout; four to eighteen inches high. Leaves.--Oblong-lanceolate to linear. Spikes.--One to even ten inches long. Perianth.--Yellowish white; four lines long. Upper sepal and two petals coherent. Lip recurved, bearing a small protuberance on each side at base. Anther.--On the face of the short column. Ovary.--One-celled. Hab.--Through the mountains from Los Angeles northward.

The twisted spikes of these little orchids are interesting, because their ranks remain so clearly defined as they wind about the stem. The plants vary greatly in different seasons as to size, and are usually found in moist places.

TARWEED. MOUNTAIN MISERY.