The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1897-12-19

the most Travelled routes, and escape
observation.
The best known of our lilies is Liliun
paradalinum, the leopard lily. 1t IS
commonly called the tiger lily in this
| State.
The true tiger lily is a native of
China, and is a very different and
coarser thing than this California one.
The leopard lily is one we may we'll be
proud of and should be known by its
right name. Throughout California 1t
is found along stream banks in moist
places, growing to five or six feet in
height and bearing many large flowers,
which have an orange ground and req
tips and are thickly dotted with dark
brown. 1 once saw mass OF THIS NY
in Lake County's mountains which
contained fully five hundred stalks SIX
to eight feet in height and in full now
er. 1t was a great mass of orange and
red glorious flower show in ITSELF IN
which a tall man would be lost.
High up in the Sierras, where the
snow lies until midsummer, another
and more beautiful lily grows, the
Washington lily It's home is the pine
woods or the chaparral thickets, where
it towers above the underbrush and
frequently reaches a height of seven
to nine feet. The leaves are arranged
in many circles and frequently twenty
or thirty pure white, trumpet shaped
flowers crown the stalk.
They have delightful fragrance and
perfume the air for rods about
near relative of the Washington
lily is the ruby lily of the coast ranges
north of the bay. This rare and beau
tiful flower finds a home in the red
| he oiorI oh 7-y.aI
ridges. It's flowers are smaller than
those of the other, but with the same
delightful fragrance. At first they are
white, but they soon begin to turn pink,
and then purple and on a single stalk
can be found all of the shades. from
white to purple.
The most curious of our plants is the
Darlingtonia, or insect trap. It is not
uncommon in Doggy places in the
Northern Sierra, and is what it's name
implies, a trap. It grows in Doggy
ground with a carpet of MOSES and
aquatics about it, and very successfully
decoys a great variety of insects. The
leaves are the traps, and are hollow,
funnel-shaped tubes, with hood at
the top. This hood is brightly colored,
to attract insects, and there is honey
bearing patch inside. Around and be-
low this honeyed patch are sharp hairs
all pointing downward. The insect is
| attracted by the scent and bright color;
it lights and tastes the honey, when it
at once begins to slide, with no chance
| of recovery. At the bottom of the tube
it finds a watery grave and goes to
feed it's captor. 1 have frequently seen
leaves of this carnivorous plant with
a solid mass two inches deep at the
bottom of the trap, consisting of the
more solid parts of the insects that it
had captured.
The pride of Southern California Is
the great bush poppy. Romneya coul-
terri with flowers of great size and It's
sue paper appearance The Romreya is
never plentiful in it's wild state, but is
successfully cultivated, and fine bushes
can be seen in the Golden Gate Park.
California has but one true primrose,
and it is one of the rarest as well as
the most beautiful flowers within it's
limits. High in the Sierras, where the
snow sometimes lies unmelted the sea-
son through, it finds it's home, and on
the north side of a few high peaks
there are acres of it. Its leafy stems
run along the ground and form solid
mats, from which slender stems arise
with umbels of flowers of the softest
of rose pink, with yellow eyes. It is
The Pentstemons are among the
showiest, as well as the most widely
spread, flowers in California. They are
blooms of the dry, gravelly and rocky
places, and revel in heat and sunshine.
The flowers are not unlike the snap
dragons in our mothers garden in
shape, and are of various shades of
blue, purple and red. They form mat
ted clumps and flower after mose
things have gone, with a perfect blaze
of bloom. Perhaps the finest of these is
PentStemon SpectabiliS, of the region
about Los Angeles, a species with bril-
liant red flowers.
CHANGED upon a little heath near
Bonner Lake this season which de-
serves mention among our floral treas
ures. A little bush fairly covered with
little bells looking like tiny lily of the
valley blossoms and as white and
sweet. It is we'll worth a hunt to en-
joy it's dainty blossoms.
Not all of our choicest flowers are
borne on plants, for California has few
finer things than the Fremontia, a
large shrub with thick, leathery leaves
and large yellow blossoms spreading
widely, like the flowers of a magnolia,
or the great Towering dogwood of the
forests of Northern California, with it's
large white flower.
Then, too, there are the Ceanothus,
or mountain lilacs, in endless variety,
and a host of other shrubs.
But my space is used, and I have
scarcely touched the vast wealth of
plant and bulb, of bush, vine and tree
with which our grand State fairly
teens.