Part 34

The Shasta lily is never found in the Coast Ranges. Another species, L. Parryi, Wats., resembling this in the form of its flowers, is found in the San Bernardino Mountains. This is known as the "lemon lily," and has clear yellow flowers, dotted sparingly with deeper yellow. It is a charming flower, and is always found in shaded, springy places in cool cañons.

LABRADOR TEA.

Ledum glandulosum, Nutt. Heath Family.

Shrubs two to six feet high. Leaves.--Alternate; short-petioled; oblong or oval; an inch or two long; coriaceous; sprinkled beneath with resin-dots. Flowers.--White; in terminal and axillary clusters. Calyx.--Five-cleft. Petals.--Five; three lines long; rotately spreading. Stamens.--Four to ten. Anthers opening terminally. Ovary.--Five-celled. Style filiform, persistent. Hab.--The Coast Ranges, from Mendocino County northward, and through the Sierras.

Our Labrador tea is a comely shrub, found in the mountains at an elevation of four thousand feet and upward. Its small, leathery leaves are miniature copies of those of the Californian rhododendron, differing from them, however, in the sprinkling of resin-dots upon the under surface.

Upon seeing the flowers of this shrub for the first time, one is apt to imagine it a member of the Rose family, something akin to the cherry, with its clusters of small white flowers of a bitter fragrance; but a glance at the anthers, with their terminal pores, tells the story quickly.

A tea made from the leaves is, with many people, a valued remedy for rheumatism.

This little shrub is much dreaded by sheepmen, who claim that it poisons their flocks. It has been suggested that it would be an excellent thing to have it widely planted as a means of reducing these bands of "hoofed locusts," as Mr. Muir terms them--these marauders who trample down so much beauty, and leave desolation everywhere in their wake.

PIPSISSIWA. PRINCE'S PINE.

Chimaphila Menziesii, Spreng. Heath Family.

Stems.--Six inches high. Leaves.--Six to eighteen lines long; dark green, sometimes variegated with white; leathery. Flowers.--One to three. Calyx.--Five-parted; white. Petals.--Five; waxen-white or pinkish. Stamens.--Ten. Filaments enlarged and hairy in the middle. Anthers two-celled; opening terminally. Ovary.--Five-celled. Style short. Stigma button-like. Hab.--The Middle Sierras and Mendocino County.

The prince's pine is a charming little plant, and may be found beneath the undergrowth in the great coniferous woods of the Sierras, where it sits demurely with bowed head, like some cloistered nun engaged with her own meditations. It has an exquisite perfume, like that of the lily of the valley.

The common prince's pine of the Eastern States--C. umbellata--is more rare with us, though it is found through somewhat the same range as the above. It is a more vigorous plant than the other, has from four to seven purplish flowers in the cluster, while its leaves are never spotted.

In the East, from the leaves of this species is manufactured the drug "chimaphila," which is valued as a tonic and astringent, also as a remedy for cataract.

GROUNDSEL-TREE.

Baccharis pilularis, DC. Composite Family.

Evergreen dioecious shrubs, one to twelve feet high, with angled or striate branches. Leaves.--Alternate; sessile; obovate; cuneate; obtuse; coarsely toothed; leathery; one inch or less long. Flower-heads.--Crowded at the ends of the branchlets; four lines long; one or two across; without ray-flowers. Involucres.--Oblong; of many imbricated scales. Sterile heads.--With funnel-form, five-lobed corollas. Fertile heads.--With filiform corollas, mixed with a dense white silky pappus, which soon elongates. Hab.--All along the Coast.

In the fall, the dark-green foliage of the groundsel-tree is relieved by its abundant small white flower-clusters. The flowers of the male shrub are never very beautiful, being usually of a yellowish or dirty white; indeed, so little resembling the other, as to appear like a separate species. But when the white silk down of the female shrub is fully expanded, its boughs are laden as with drifted snow. This lavish provision of silk is designed by nature for the wafting abroad of the seed.

It varies greatly in size and habit. Upon exposed, wind-swept sandhills it is low and close-cropped, but in more favorable localities, where the soil is rich and the climate more genial, it responds graciously to the changed conditions, becoming one of our most picturesque shrubs.

Growing and blooming at the same time with the above, may be found its near relative--B. Douglasii, DC. This does not aspire to shrubhood, but its tall stems, with their lanceolate, somewhat glutinous leaves, sometimes reach four feet in height, bearing at summit their pretty Ageratum-like, white flower-clusters. It loves the sandy soil of creek-banks and low fields, and is abundant from San Francisco to Los Angeles.

LARGE WHITE MOUNTAIN DAISY.

Erigeron Coulteri, T.C. Porter. Composite Family.

Stem.--Six to twenty inches high; leafy; bearing solitary or rarely two or three large, slender-peduncled heads. Leaves.--Obovate to oblong; entire or with several sharp teeth; thin. Flower-heads.--Of yellow disk-flowers, and usually pure white ray-flowers. Disk.--Half an inch wide. Rays.--Fifty to seventy; narrowly linear; six lines or more long. Hab.--The Sierras; also the Rocky Mountains of Colorado.

"High on the crest of the blossoming grasses, Bending and swaying, with face toward the sky, Stirred by the lightest west wind as it passes, Hosts of the silver-white daisy-stars lie."

No fairer sight could be imagined than a mountain meadow filled with these large, pure-white, feathery daisies.

CALIFORNIAN FALSE HELLEBORE.

Veratrum Californicum, Durand. Lily Family.

Stems.--Stout; three to seven feet high. Leaves.--Oval; narrowing to lanceolate; sessile; sheathing; four to twelve inches long. Flowers.--Greenish-white in a large panicle, with usually ascending branches. Stamens and pistils in the same flowers, or in separate ones. Pedicels.--About two lines long. Perianth segments.--Six; spreading; oblanceolate; their bases thickened and green or brownish; upper margins sometimes minutely toothed; three to eight lines long. Stamens.--Six. Anthers confluently one-celled. Ovary.--Three-celled. Styles three, divergent. Hab.--The Middle Sierras and Mendocino County northward to the Columbia; also eastward.