318 
However, I must not risk generalizations; the vegetable 
riches of that region are too little known. I spent only one day 
in Sutter County and barely four hours at the Buttes; but in 
that time some one hundred and ten species fell into my hands, 
at least three of which were undescribed. No botanist has to my 
knowledge ever made a collection to illustrate even partially the 
flora of this peculiarly isolated compact group of hills. The 
water expedition of the Wilkes party from San Francisco, of 
which Dr. Pickering was plant collector, ascended the Sacramento 
River in August, 1841, and “passed the Prairie Buttes, which are 
a collection of isolated hills rising from the level plain as if out of 
the sea.” The land expedition of the same party from Oregon 
encamped at nightfall “after an ineffectual search for water..... in 
the valley or ‘kraal’ of the Buttes” and left the next morning. 
This was October, the dryest season ofthe year. From this point, 
Butte Pass, they call it now, I climbed to the summit of the South 
Peak, nearly two thousand feet above the level of the valley, and 
two thousand one hundred and twenty-eight above the sea. 
The Buttes have at a distance a very barren appearance, and 
they are in fact but little wooded. The annual growth was, how- 
ever, everywhere luxuriant, even to the summits of the highest 
rocky points. The sides of the little cafion which I entered 
were clothed with dwarfed oak trees, rhamnus and holly bushes 
and undershrubs. Over the tops of the oaks and other trees 
clambered the clematis, lighting the whole cafion side with its 
wonderful profusion of blossoms. 
As to whether the affinities of the flora are with the Coast 
Range or Sierra Nevada can only be determined by more exten- 
sive and protracted collecting. My time was perforce too short, 
and many of the very common things were neglected. Widely 
introduced plants and native species of extensive geographical 
range one would naturally expect to find here. About the old 
settlements on the Feather River, Marrubium vulgare grew 
rankly; on the Sutter Plains Capsella bursa-pastoris, Silene 
Gallica, Achyrachena mollis, Sonchus oleraceus, were frequent ; 
and at the Buttes, Sanzcula Menztesti, Micropus Californicus, 
Rigiopappus leptocladus, Hypocheris glabra, Malacothrix obtusa, 
Githopsis specularioides, Salvia Columbariee and Plantago Pata- 
