Part 63

Makes Sabbath in the fields, and ever ringeth A call to prayer."

One of the oddest and most beautiful flowers of our rich woodlands is the brown lily, or Fritillaria. It is unrivaled in elegance, for every line of its contour is a study in grace. Nor do its charms cease with stem and leaf and flower; for, hidden away in the rich leaf-mold, is one of its most beautiful features, its bulb. This is pure, shining white, conical in form, and surrounded by many tiny bulblets, like grains of rice, which crumble away from it at a touch. If you go into the woods in early spring, you will often see certain handsome, broad, shining, solitary leaves, close to the ground, and you will wonder what they are. Often near them there are many tiny leaves of the same sort pushing their way aboveground; and sometimes among them all there is a solitary strong scape, with unfolding leaves and a promise of flowers. This is a colony of the beautiful brown lilies. The tiny leaves are the product of the little rice-grains, and are probably now seeing the light for the first time. Between these and the large leaves the breadth of the hand, are many sizes, in all stages. The broad leaves may be from bulbs four or five years old, but they will send up no blossom-stalk this year; for there is rarely or never a radical-leaf and a blossom-stalk from the same bulb at once.

When the plant is about to flower, the bulb sends up a tall stalk, with here and there a whorl of shining leaves, hanging at the summit its string of pendent bronze-bells. These are mottled and checkered, and are of varying shades, from dull green to black-purple, and often have a beautiful bloom upon them. Their modest colors blend so nicely into the shadowy scene about, that it is difficult to see them unless the eye is somewhat practiced.

Following the inflorescence comes a beautiful and unique seed-vessel, curiously winged and angled, and of a delicate, papery texture when mature. It contains the thin, flat seeds, neatly packed in six ranks.

The flowers are usually an inch long, though they are sometimes two inches long. A plant was once found three and a half feet high, with a chime of nineteen bells.

BLACK LILY. CHOCOLATE-LILY.

Fritillaria biflora, Lindl. Lily Family.

Hab.--The Coast Ranges, from San Diego to Mendocino County.

We have a number of species of Fritillaria, most of them with beautiful flowers. They fall naturally into two groups, according to the character of the bulb; F. lanceolata and F. biflora being types of the two groups.

F. biflora, the black, or chocolate, lily, is the species common in the south, and blooms early. It closely resembles F. lanceolata, but can always be distinguished by its bulb, which is composed of several erect, short, easily separable scales. Its specific name is an unfortunate one; for, far from being confined to two flowers, it often has as many as ten.

F. pluriflora, Torr., found upon the upper Sacramento, has flowers of a uniform reddish-purple, without mottling or spots. It has a comparatively large bulb, an inch or so long, formed of separate scales.

F. pudica, Spreng., found on the eastern slopes of the Sierras, has solitary yellow flowers.

F. liliacea, Lindl., is our only white species. This is found upon the hills of San Francisco and in the Sacramento Valley. It has a whorl of leaves near the ground and two or three greenish-white, nodding flowers. It is exceedingly local.

LARGE-FLOWERED PHACELIA.

Phacelia grandiflora, Gray. Baby-eyes or Waterleaf Family.

Coarse, glandular-viscid plants; one to three feet high. Leaves.--Round-ovate; irregularly toothed; sometimes three or four inches long. Flowers.--Lavender to white; variously streaked and veined with purple. Corolla.--Rotate; two inches across; without scalelike appendages in the throat. Filaments.--Long; purple. Anthers large; versatile. Style two-cleft. (See Phacelia.) Hab.--From Santa Barbara to San Diego.

This is the largest-flowered of all our Phacelias. Its tall stems are abundantly covered above with the fine-looking blossoms. These are very attractive to the uninitiated, who usually rushes forward in breathless haste to possess himself of these new-found treasures and is rarely satisfied with less than a large bunch of them. But woe lies in wait for him. The innumerable glands, covering the whole plant, readily yield up their viscid fluid, which in a few moments turns everything with which it comes in contact to a deep red-brown, like iron-rust. If he escape with ruined clothing, and hands the color of a red Indian, he will have come off well--for the plant poisons some people.

Another species--P. viscida, Torr.--found in about the same range as the above, resembles it closely. It is a foot or so high, branching from the base, and has blue flowers, with purple or white centers, and only half the size of the above.

VIOLET NIGHTSHADE.

Solanum Xanti, Gray. Nightshade Family.

Herbaceous nearly to the base; viscid-pubescent, with jointed hairs. Stems.--Several feet high. Leaves.--Two inches or less long; sometimes with lobes at the base; thin. Flowers.--An inch or so across. Calyx.--Five-parted. Corolla.--Violet, with green spots ringed with white at the base. Stamens.--Five. Filaments short. Anthers erect; opening terminally. Ovary.--Two-celled. Style filiform; exserted. Berries.--Purple; six lines in diameter. Hab.--Throughout California.

These plants are especially abundant in the south, where one encounters them upon every roadside. The clusters of violet flowers are very handsome, and often have the perfume of the wild rose.

Another species--S. umbelliferum, Esch.--is so nearly like the above as to be often confounded with it. But it has smaller, thicker leaves, the hairs are branched, and it is more woody below, with shorter flowering branches.

We once saw, in an ideal Japanese villa among the redwoods, a rustic arbor over which had been trained the rough, woody stems of one of these nightshades. The genius of these wise little people, who had adapted this pretty woodland climber to sylvan cultivation, seemed to us worthy of emulation.

GREEN-BANDED MARIPOSA. NOONA.

Calochortus macrocarpus, Dougl. Lily Family

Nature has sent this, one of the finest and most elegant of all our Mariposas, to beautify the arid sagebrush deserts of our northeastern boundary. In Europe it is admired beyond all our other species, and there is a great demand for the bulbs. Its large flowers are of a beautiful lilac, similar in tone to the Marie Louise violet, and each pointed petal has a green band running down its center.

Among the Indians of their native region the rather large bulbs of these plants are known as "noonas," and regarded as a priceless delicacy. Even those who have never experienced the bliss of tasting them know them by reputation as the acme of all that is delicious. When Mr. Johnson, of Astoria, wished to secure a number of the bulbs for the European market, he hired the squaws to dig them, but found that they ate them as fast as they dug them; and it was only by offering them most liberal stores of bacon and flour he could induce them to restrain their appetites and part with the treasure.