Part 67

Under southern skies it becomes a deep Yale blue, with the texture of tissue-paper, and with dark red-brown anthers.

From the campanulate, half-opened buds, it has been called "Californian bluebell," and among the Spanish-Californians it is known as "Mariana."

LILAC SAND-VERBENA. WILD LANTANA.

Abronia villosa, Wats. Four-o'clock Family.

Plants with more or less glandular-villous pubescence. Stems.--Prostrate. Leaves.--Rarely an inch long. Peduncles.--One to three inches long; five- to fifteen-flowered. Involucral bracts.--Lanceolate; three or four lines long. Perianth.--Lilac; four or five lines across; with obcordate lobes. (Otherwise as A. latifotia.) Hab.--San Diego and eastward; also in southern deserts.

The charming flowers of the lilac sand-verbena are not found upon the immediate sea-beach, but always a little withdrawn from it, where the soil is more firmly established, yet within sight and sound of the waves. The blossoms have a delicate beauty, not shared by our other species of Abronia, and somewhat resemble our garden verbenas. They are sometimes called "wild lantana."

A. umbellata, Lam., is common all up and down our coast, often making masses of deep pink on the beach; while A. maritima, Nutt., is found from Santa Barbara to San Diego. The latter is a very stout, coarse, viscid plant, with small, very deep magenta flowers.

CAMASS. KAMASS. WILD HYACINTH.

Camassia esculenta, Lindl. Lily Family.

Bulbs coated. Leaves.--Radical; six or eight; grasslike; three to eight lines broad; usually shorter than the scape. Scape.--Twelve to twenty-four inches high; loosely ten- to twenty-flowered. Pedicels three to twelve lines long. Flowers.--From dark blue to nearly white; seven to fifteen lines long or more; an inch or so across. Perianth.--Of six distinct, oblanceolate, three- to seven-nerved segments. Stamens.--Six; shorter than the segments. Anthers yellow. Ovary.--Three-celled. Style filiform; about equaling the perianth; slightly three-cleft at the summit. Hab.--From Central California to Washington.

In some localities these plants are found covering meadows and marshy tracts in great profusion. They bear beautiful clusters of showy blue flowers, somewhat like the hyacinth in habit, and have long been favorites in European gardens. We are especially interested in them, however, on account of the bulbs, which are about an inch in diameter and very nutritious.

Grizzly bears, when more plentiful in the early days, were particularly fond of them; and the northern Indians to-day value them very highly as an article of diet, calling them "kamáss." Indeed, the Nez Percé Indian war in Idaho was caused by encroachments upon the territory which was especially rich in these bulbs. The plants are more abundant north of us than with us.

Mr. Macoun gives a most interesting account in "Garden and Forest" of the preparation of kamáss among the Indians, which is a very important and elaborate performance. He says, in substance: For some days beforehand the squaws were busily engaged in carrying into camp branches of alder and maple, bundles of skunk-cabbage (Lysichiton), and a quantity of a black, hairlike lichen, which grows in profusion upon the western larch. A hole ten feet square and two feet deep was then dug, and a large fire was made in this, in which they heated a great many small boulders to the glowing point. They then piled maple and alder boughs over these to the depth of a foot or more, tramped them down, and laid over them the leaves of the skunk-cabbage. Thin sheets of tamarack bark were spread over the steaming green mass, and upon these were placed the bulbs in large baskets. The black lichen was laid over the uncovered bark, and the remaining bulbs were spread on this. The whole was then covered with boughs and leaves as before, and sand was sprinkled on to the depth of four or five inches, and on the top of the whole a larger fire than before was built. The sun was just setting when this was lighted, and it burned all night. The oven was left for a day to cool. When opened, the bulbs in the baskets were dissolved to a flour, from which bread could be made; while those on the lichen had become amalgamated with it, forming a substance resembling plug-tobacco, which could be broken up and kept sweet a long time.

When boiled in water, the bulbs yield a very good molasses, much prized by the Indians, and used by them upon important festival occasions.

There is a white-flowered form of this same species, whose bulb is said to be poisonous.

INNOCENCE. COLLINSIA.

Collinsia bicolor, Benth. Figwort Family.

Stems.--A foot or so high. Leaves.--The lower oblong; the upper ovate-lanceolate. Calyx.--Unequally five-cleft. Corolla.--Nine lines long. Upper lip lilac or white; lower of three lobes; the middle folded into a keeled sac containing the stamens and style; the two lateral rose-purple. Stamens.--Four; in two pairs on the corolla. Upper filaments bearded. Ovary.--Two-celled. Style filiform. Hab.--Throughout Western California.

Where spreading trees cast a dense shade and the moisture still lingers, companies of lovely Collinsias stand amid the fresh green grasses, their delicate, many-storied blossoms swaying upon the idle breezes. In the north these are in the rear guard of spring flowers, and make their appearance just before the Godetias bid farewell to spring; but in the south they come earlier. They vary much in color, from the typical rose-purple and white or lilac to all white.

We have a number of species; but C. bicolor is the most showy and widespread.

BLACK SAGE. BALL-SAGE.

Audibertia stachyoides, Benth. Mint Family.

Shrubby; three to eight feet high; with herbaceous flowering branches. Leaves.--Opposite; oblong-lanceolate; tapering into a petiole; crenate. Flowers.--In interrupted spikes, having from three to nine dense, rather remote, headlike, bracteate whorls. Calyx.--Bilabiate; each lip with two or three awned teeth. Corolla.--Lavender; six lines long; bilabiate. Upper lip erect; emarginate; lower deflexed; three-lobed. Stamens.--Two sterile; two perfect on jointed filaments. Ovary.--Of four seedlike nutlets. Style slender. Stigma two-cleft. Hab.--From San Francisco Bay to San Diego.

We have but two or three true sages, or Salvias, in California; but the plants of the closely allied genus Audibertia are with perfect propriety called sages, as they manifest all the characteristics of that genus, differing only in the structure of the stamens. There are a number of species of Audibertia, all of them important honey-plants. They are particularly abundant in the south, where they form a characteristic feature in the landscape, often covering whole hill-slopes.

A. stachyoides frequently forms dense thickets over vast reaches of mountain-side, and when in full bloom is very noticeable. Its specific name is a happy one, denoting its resemblance to the Stachys, or hedge-nettle. But its pointed leaves, shrubby habit, and rank odor, together with its more numerous flower-whorls, proclaim its separate identity.

A. nivea, Benth., found from Santa Barbara to San Diego, has larger spikes of rich, warm lilac flowers. Nothing could be more charming than the soft lavender billows of it undulating over slope after slope of wild mountain-side.

BLUE GILIA.

Cilia Chamissonis, Greene. Phlox or Polemonium Family.