Part 48

Grindelia cuneifolia, Nutt. Composite Family.

Bushy; two to four feet high; smooth. Leaves.--Cuneate-spatulate to linear-oblong; leathery; three or four inches long. Flower-heads.--Solitary; terminating the branches; yellow; composed of disk- and ray-flowers. Rays.--One inch long. Involucre.--Hemispherical; of numerous scales, with spreading tips. Buds.--Covered with a milky gum. Syn.--Grindelia robusta, var. angustifolia, Gray. Hab.--From Santa Barbara northward.

The Grindelias are especially characteristic of the region west of the Mississippi River, and are all known as "gum-plant," or "resin-weed," owing to the balsamic exudation which is found mostly upon the flower-heads. We have several species, all of which are rather difficult of determination.

Before the occupation of California by the whites, the value of these plants was known to the Indians, who used them in pulmonary troubles, and as a wash in cases of oak-poisoning or other skin-diseases. They are now made into a drug by our own people, who use them in the same manner as the aborigines.

By the middle of August our salt marshes are gay with the bright yellow flowers.

Every year men are sent out to gather the plant. Only about five or six inches of the tops of the branches are cut, as the resin is found mostly there in the form of a white gum. Tons of these shoots are shipped East annually, to be returned to us later in the form of the medicine called "grindelia."

Grindelia hirsutula, Hook. and Arn., is a pretty species, flowering in early summer upon hill-slopes. This may be known by its reddish stems and more slender and fewer ray-flowers.

SULPHUR-FLOWER.

Eriogonum umbellatum, Torr. Buckwheat Family.

Leaves.--All radical; obovate to oblong-spatulate; two inches or less long; mostly smooth above; sometimes woolly below. Scapes.--Three to twelve inches high. Flowers.--Sulphur-yellow; two or three lines long; many contained in each little top-shaped involucre, on threadlike stems. Involucres.--Two lines or so long; deeply cleft, the lobes becoming reflexed. Perianth.--Six-parted. Stamens.--Nine. Ovary.--Triangular; one-celled. Styles.--Three. Stigmas capitate. Hab.--Mountains of Middle and Northern California, and eastward.

Large companies of the sulphur-flower may be seen in the Sierras in July and August, where it covers open, dry, rocky slopes, making brilliant masses of color.

Growing with this is often found another species--E. ursinum, Wats.--with flowers of a beautiful translucent cream-color, often tinged with pink.

WILD BOUVARDIA.

Gilia grandiflora, Gray. Phlox or Polemonium Family.

Stems.--Erect; a foot or two high. Leaves.--Two or three inches long; linear or oblong-lanceolate; sessile. Flowers.--Salmon-color; crowded at the summit of the stem. Calyx.--With obconic tube and broad, obtuse lobes. Corolla.--Narrowly funnel-form, with tube an inch long, and five-lobed border almost as broad. (See Gilia.) Hab.--Widely distributed.

This plant was formerly placed in the genus Collomia; but that genus was not well founded, and all its species have now been transferred to Gilia. From the resemblance of its showy buff or salmon-colored flowers to the Bouvardias of our gardens, these plants are popularly known as "wild Bouvardia." The blossoms are found in early summer, and grow usually in dry places, exposed to the sun.

LITTLE ALPINE LILY.

Lilium parvum, Kell. Lily Family.

Bulbs.--Small; of short, thick, jointed scales. Stem.--Slender; eighteen inches to six feet high. Leaves.--Scattered, or in whorls; two to five inches long; an inch or less broad; rich green. Flowers.--Orange-vermilion, dotted with purple; two to fifty; scattered or somewhat whorled. Capsule.--Sub-spherical; six to nine lines long. Hab.--The High Sierras, from Yosemite Valley to Lake Tahoe.

Passing from the parched and dusty plains of our central valleys in July and August, we are transported as though upon the magic tapestry of Prince Houssain into a heavenly region of springtime, where the streams, fed by the snow lying in shadowy mountain fastnesses, gush through plushy emerald meadows, starred with millions of daisies and bordered by luxuriant tangles of larkspurs, columbines, monk's-hoods, lupines, and a thousand other charming plants--a veritable flower-lover's paradise.

Here from the thickets, standing with their roots in the rich, loamy soil of the brookside, gleam the small orange blossoms of the little alpine lily--little only in flower, for the slender stems often rise to a height of six feet, producing several whorls of rich green leaves. These lilies are but an inch or an inch a half long, with their perianth-segments yellow or orange below and deeper orange-vermilion above, their tips only being rolled backward.

GOLDEN YARROW.

Eriophyllum confertiflorum, Gray. Composite Family.

White-woolly plants, at length smooth. Stems.--A foot or two high. Leaves.--Cuneate in outline; divided into three to seven narrow linear divisions. Flowers.--Golden yellow; in densely crowded flat-topped clusters. Heads.--Small; of disk- and ray-flowers. Rays.--Four or five; broadly oval or roundish. Involucre.--Oval; of about five thin bracts; two lines long. Hab.--From San Francisco to the Sierras, and southward to San Diego.

In early summer many a dry, rocky hill-slope is ablaze with the brilliant flowers of the golden yarrow. The brown-mottled butterfly may often be seen hovering over it, or delicately poising upon its golden table, fanning his wings.

E. caespitosum, Dougl., is a very handsome species with solitary golden flower-heads an inch or so across. Its leaves are broader and not so finely divided, and some of the upper ones are linear and entire. This is found throughout California.

TARWEED. WILD COREOPSIS.

Madia elegans, Don. Composite Family.