Part 37

Stem.--Simple; a foot or so high; bearing at summit a crown of large leaves, mixed with many dry, chaffy, persistent bracts. Leaves.--One or two feet long, with from eleven to seventeen ovate, acuminate, prickly, somewhat palmately nerved leaflets. Flowers.--Yellow, in elongated, clustered racemes. Bractlets, sepals, petals, and stamens six, standing in front of one another. Anthers two-celled; opening by uplifting valves. Ovary.--One-celled. Style short or none. Fruit.--Dark-blue, glaucous berries; four lines in diameter. Hab.--Deep coast woods, from Monterey to Vancouver Island.

The water-holly is one of the beautiful plants to be found in our deep coast woods within the cool influence of the sea-fogs. The plants are very symmetrical, with their crown of dark, shining leaves, with numerous prickly leaflets, and in spring, when the long graceful racemes of yellow flowers are produced in abundance, and hang amid and below the leaves, they are very ornamental. The stems are densely clothed with numerous dry, awl-shaped scales, an inch or more long.

Another species--B. repens--the creeping barberry, or Oregon grape, is a low, prostrate shrub, less than a foot high, with from three to seven leaflets. These leaflets are pinnately veined, and have not the beautiful, shining upper surface of those of the water-holly, and the few racemes of yellow flowers which terminate the branches are quite short--only an inch or two long. This is found throughout the State and northward upon rocky hills.

TREE-POPPY.

Dendromecon rigidum, Benth. Poppy Family.

Shrubs two to eight feet high. Leaves.--One to three inches long; leathery. Flowers.--Solitary; yellow; one to three inches across. Sepals.--Two; falling early. Petals.--Four. Stamens.--Many. Ovary.--Linear; one-celled. Stigma two-lobed. Capsule.--Eighteen to thirty lines long. Hab.--Dry hills from San Diego to Butte County.

The tree-poppy is the only truly woody plant in the poppy family. Its pale leaves are quite rigid, and resemble those of the willow in form. The bright golden flowers are sometimes three inches across, and one can readily imagine the fine effect produced when many of them are open at once upon a hillside. Though found through quite a range, this shrub attains its most perfect development in Santa Barbara County.

YELLOW PANSY.

Viola pedunculata, Torr. and Gray. Violet Family.

Stems.--Leafy; two to six inches or more high. Leaves.--Alternate; long-petioled; ovate; cuneate; crenate; with lanceolate stipules. Flowers.--Large; long-peduncled; deep golden yellow. Calyx.--Five-parted. Petals.--The two upper tinged with brown outside; the three lower veined with purple; the two lateral bearded; the lower one with a short spur at base. Stamens.--Five. Anthers nearly sessile; erect around the club-shaped style. Ovary.--One-celled. Hab.--Southern to Middle California.

Pansies! Pansies! How I love you, pansies! Jaunty-faced, laughing-lipped, and dewy-eyed with glee; Would my song might blossom out in little five-leaved stanzas As delicate in fancies As your beauty is to me!

But, my eyes shall smile on you and my hands infold you, Pet, caress, and lift you to the lips that love you, so That, shut ever in the years that may mildew or mold you, My fancy shall behold you Fair as in the long ago.

--JAS. WHITCOMB RILEY.

On wind-swept downs near the ocean, on the low hills of the Coast Ranges, or upon the plains of the interior, this charming golden pansy spreads itself in profusion in early spring. It is the darling of the children, who on their way to school gather great handfuls of its brown-eyed blossoms.

You may often see myriads of them dancing on their long stems in the breeze, and showing glimpses of red-brown where their purplish outer petals are turned toward you for the moment. In the shelter of quiet woodlands, its stems are longer and more fragile.

TWIN-BERRY.

Lonicera involucrata, Banks. Honeysuckle Family.

Shrubs eight to ten feet high. Leaves.--Three inches long or so. Flowers.--A pair; at the summit of an axillary peduncle; with a conspicuous involucre of four bracts, tinged with red or yellow. Calyx.--Adherent to the ovary; the limb minute or obsolete. Corolla.--Tubular; irregular; half an inch or more long; viscid-pubescent; yellowish. Stamens.--Five. Ovary.--Two- or three-celled. Style filiform. Stigma capitate. Berries.--Black-purple. Hab.--Throughout the State; eastward to Lake Superior.

A walk through some moist thicket, or along a stream-bank in March, will reveal the yellow flowers of the twin-berry amid its ample, thin green leaves. These blossoms are always borne in pairs at the summit of the stem, and are surrounded by a leafy involucre, consisting of two pairs of round, fluted bracts. As the berries ripen and become black, these bracts deepen to a brilliant red and make the shrubs much more conspicuous and ornamental than at blossoming-time.

OREGON GRAPE. HOLLY-LEAVED BARBERRY. MAHONIA.

Berberis Aquifolium, Pursh. Barberry Family.

Shrubs two to six feet high; branching. Leaves.--Alternate; pinnate. Leaflets.--Seven to nine; glossy; ovate to oblong-lanceolate; one and one half to four inches long; acuminate; sinuately dentate, with numerous spinose teeth; the lowest pair distant from the stem. Racemes.--Eighteen lines to two inches long; clustered near the ends of the branches. (Otherwise as B. nervosa.) Hab.--Coast Ranges and Sierras from Monterey and Kern County northward into Oregon.

The holly-leaved barberry, or Oregon grape, is a very ornamental shrub and one much prized in our gardens, where it is known as Mahonia Aquifolium. In the spring, when yellow with its masses of flowers; or in its summer dress of rich, shining green; or in the autumn, when its foliage is richly touched with bronze or scarlet or yellow, amid which are the beautiful blue berries, it is always a fine shrub. In its native haunts it affects greater altitudes than our other species.

Among our Californian Indians, a decoction made from the root is a favorite tonic remedy, and it has become a recognized drug in the pharmacopoeia of our Coast, being used as an alterative and tonic. The root is tough and hard, of a bright golden yellow, and intensely bitter. The bark of the root is the part that is used medicinally.

The shrub is very plentiful in the woods of Mendocino County, where it covers considerable areas.

SUNSHINE. FLY-FLOWER.

Baeria gracilis, Gray. Composite Family.

Six inches or so high; branching freely. Leaves.--Mostly opposite; linear; entire; an inch or so long. Flower-heads.--Yellow; of disk and ray-flowers. Rays.--Ten to fourteen; three or four lines long. Involucre.--Campanulate; of a single series of small lanceolate, herbaceous scales. Hab.--From San Francisco southward.