Part 78

The name "snow-plant" is very misleading, because from it one naturally expects to find the plant growing upon the snow. But this is rarely or never the case, for it is after the melting of the snow that it pushes its way aboveground.

Late in the season the plant usually has one or more well-formed young plants underground at its base. These are all ready to come forth the next season at the first intimation that the snow has gone, which easily accounts for its marvelously rapid growth. By the end of August, the seed-vessels are well developed, and as large as a small marble, but flattened; and by that time the plants have lost their brilliant coloring, and become dull and faded.

It is said that the stems have been boiled and eaten, and found quite palatable; but this would seem to the lover of the beautiful like eating the showbread from the ark of Nature's tabernacle.

SOUTHERN SCARLET LARKSPUR.

Delphinium cardinale, Hook. Buttercup or Crowfoot Family.

Stems.--Three to ten feet tall. Leaves.--Large; five- to seven-lobed nearly to the base, the lobes three- to five-cleft, with long-pointed segments. Flowers.--Large. Sepals.--Lanceolate; eight lines or more long; rotately spreading; the spur an inch or more long; pointed. Upper petals.--Orange, tipped with red; pointed; standing prominently forward. (Otherwise as D. nudicaule.) Hab.--The mountains, from Ventura County to San Diego.

During all the long springtime, Nature has been quietly making her preparations for a grand floral denouement to take place about mid-June. If we go out into the mountains of the south at that season, we shall be confronted with a blaze of glory, the like of which we have probably never witnessed before. This is due to the brilliant spires of the scarlet larkspur, which sometimes rise to a height of ten feet!

One writer likens the appearance of these blossoms, as they grow in dense masses, to a hill on fire; and Mr. Sturtevant writes: "To come upon a large group of these plants in full bloom for the first time, is an event never to be forgotten. I first saw a mass of them in the distance from the top of a hill. Descending, I came upon them in such a position that the rays of the setting sun intensified the brilliancy of their fiery orange-scarlet color. I gathered a large armful of stalks, from three to seven feet high, and placed them in water. They continued to expand for several weeks in water."

There is a general resemblance between this and the northern scarlet larkspur, but the clusters of this are far larger and denser, and the individual flowers are finer. The half-opened buds more resemble the open flowers of D. nudicaule; but the fully expanded flowers have the form of some of the finest of the blue larkspurs.

The plants affect a sandy soil or one of decomposed granite.

WESTERN CARDINAL-FLOWER.

Lobelia splendens, Willd. Lobelia Family.

Stems.--Two to four feet tall; slender, smooth or nearly so. Leaves.--Alternate; mostly sessile; lanceolate or almost linear; glandular-denticulate. Flowers.--In an elongated, wandlike raceme; cardinal red. Calyx.--Five-cleft. Corolla.--With straight tube, over an inch long and split down the upper side; border two-lipped; upper lip with two rather erect lobes; lower spreading and three-cleft, with lobes three to six lines long. Stamens.--Five; united into a tube above. Anthers somewhat hairy. Ovary.--Two-celled. Style simple. Stigma two-lobed. Hab.--San Diego, San Bernardino, and Los Angeles Counties, and eastward to Texas.

The Western cardinal-flower quite closely resembles L. cardinalis of the East, differing from it in a few minor points only. I have never been fortunate enough to see it; but I am told that it is a magnificent plant, and that from July to September many a wet spot in our southern mountain cañons is made gay with its brilliant blossoms.

Of the Eastern plant Mr. Burroughs writes: "But when vivid color is wanted, what can surpass or equal our cardinal-flower? There is a glow about this flower, as if color emanated from it as from a live coal. The eye is baffled and does not seem to reach the surface of the petal; it does not see the texture or material part as it does in other flowers, but rests in a steady, still radiance. It is not so much something colored as it is color itself. And then the moist, cool, shady places it affects usually, where it has no rivals, and where the large, dark shadows need just such a dab of fire! Often, too, we see it double, its reflected image in some dark pool heightening its effect."

HUMMING-BIRD'S TRUMPET. CALIFORNIA FUCHSIA.

Zauschneria Californica, Presl. Evening-Primrose Family.

Woody plants, more or less villous. Stems.--Much branched; ascending or decumbent; one to three feet long. Leaves.--Mostly alternate; sessile; narrowly lanceolate to ovate; six to eighteen lines long. Flowers.--Bright scarlet; in a loose spike; funnel-form; twenty lines long. Calyx.--Scarlet; four-cleft. Petals.--Four; obcordate; borne on the calyx-tube. Stamens.--Eight. Filaments and style more or less exserted. Ovary.--Four-celled; inferior. Stigma four-lobed. Hab.--From Plumas County to Mexico; and the Rocky Mountains east of the Great Basin.

In late summer and through the autumn, the brilliant blossoms of the California Fuchsia brighten the sombre tones of our dry, open hill-slopes. Its aspect is one of gay insouciance, which would drive away melancholy despite oneself, and though other plants have been put to rout, one by one, by the sun's fierce glare, nothing daunted, it puts on its brightest hues, like a true apostle of cheerfulness. It has been cultivated for some time, and is highly prized in Eastern gardens, where it has earned for itself the pretty title of "humming-bird's trumpet." It is not confined to our limits, but extends southward into Mexico, and eastward to Wyoming. We have seen it flourishing in the Sierras, where it is particularly beautiful.

It is called "balsamea" by the Spanish-Californians, who use a wash of it as a remedy for cuts and bruises.

It varies greatly in the size and hairiness of its leaves, in the form of its flowers, which are broadly or narrowly funnel-form, and in the exsertion of the stamens and style. The var. microphylla has a woolly pubescence, linear leaves often very small, three or four lines long, and other small leaves crowded in their axils. This is found in the south.

There is no glory in star or blossom Till looked upon by a loving eye; There is no fragrance in April breezes Till breathed with joy as they wander by.

--WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT.

VI. MISCELLANEOUS

MUILLA.

Muilla maritima, Benth. Lily Family.

Root.--A small membranous-coated corm. Leaves.--Radical; linear; equaling the slender scape. Scapes.--Three to twelve inches high, bearing an umbel of small greenish-white flowers, subtended by several small lanceolate to linear bracts. Pedicels.--Five to fifteen; two to twelve lines long. Perianth.--Almost rotate; of six segments; two or three lines long. Stamens.--Six. Ovary.--Globose; three-celled. Hab.--The Coast, from Marin County to Monterey; also inland.

The generic name of this little plant is Allium reversed.