THE PI.ANT WORI.D 59 



tangle of nestling grasses that make winter provender for sheep in what 

 seems a wilderness, the scarlet heads of the Indian Paint-brush flash out, 

 like gaily-dyed feathers in an Indian brave's hair. Here, too, we find 

 the tufted dusty-green leaves, like miniature palm crowns, of the white 

 sage, which makes in summer when it blooms California's best bee 

 pasture ; and here of course we maj^ be sure of at least a species or two 

 of that genus which the novice in the flora of the far west finds to be a 

 special trial to his patience, Eriogonum. The ill-smelling bladderpod, 

 its yellow flowers suspending from their midst the swollen, bladdery seed- 

 vessels that give the plant its English name, takes with equal kindness 

 to such situations, and what with its inherent malodor and its cactus 

 hedge, is about as well protected from intruders as a plant need desire. 

 Neighbor to it, like as not, is the showy wild four-o'clock, whose in- 

 volucred, brilliant calyx, invariably mistaken by every beginner in botany 

 for a corolla, leads him a weary chase into the slough of despond before 

 he learns its name. 



The little purple-flowered filaree and alfalfa's spiny-fruited cousin, 

 the bur-clover — two plants that seem to have taken a contract to carpet 

 Southern California — excite no special wonder when found in the thick 

 of our cactus bed, but is is something of a surprise to see from within 

 these inhospitable walls of spines the purple banners of the wild sweet 

 pea swing out in pleasant companionship with the brodiaea's round heads 

 of blue. Equally surprising is it to find pretty gardens of delicate ferns 

 snuggling about the cactus roots — the California gold and silver ferns and 

 the birdfoot Pellaea reposing in beds of Selaginella. And, of course, here 

 also is the ubiquitous Artemisia, or sagebrush — a plant whose aromatic 

 fragrance is borne to us on almost every breeze in Southern California, 

 and makes a tramp through any sunlit chapparal an excursion that even 

 the blind may enjoy. 



These are not a tithe of the floral riches which may be discovered on 

 such forbidding hillsides, but they will perhaps serve to show that like 

 the dog whose bark is worse than his bite, the cactus is not so bad a 

 neighbor as its appearance would indicate. 



Pasadena, Cal. 



Dr. W. a. Cannon, of the New York Botanical Garden, has been 

 appointed resident investigator for the Desert Botanical Laboratory of the 

 Carnegie Institution, the establishment of which was announced in a pre- 

 vious issue of The Plant World. The advisory board of the Labora- 

 tory, consisting of Mr. Frederick V. Coville and Dr. D. T. MacDougal, 

 is now making a reconnaissance of the Mexican boundary region, for the 

 purpose of selecting a suitable site for the laboratory. 



