52 ERYTHEA. 



The country was teeming witli flowers; eschscholtzias, platys- 

 temons, delphiniums, violas, nemophilas, gilias and linanthuses 

 formed brilliantly-colored patches covering the extensive prairies. 

 But the display was not to last long. This was April, and Hartweg 

 soon began to realize with what rapidity the vegetation ran its 

 course under "the cloudless sky" of Alta California. 



From his headquarters he made various expeditions, one north- 

 wards seventy miles, to the Upper Sacramento Valley, which should 

 have taken him to the neighborhood of the 40th parallel, about 

 opposite what is now Tehama. There can be no doubt, it seems to 

 us, however, that he went at least as far northward as the present 

 town of Chico, and, it may be, not further. From this point he 

 made an excursion into the Sierra foot-hills, on which occasion 

 Ceanothiis prostratus was collected for the first time. Later he as- 

 cended the isolated group of mountains rising up out of the plains 

 between the Feather and Sacramento Rivers, now known as the 

 Marysville Buttes, from which he could see the great tule basins 

 flooded with water. He also visited the Sierra foot-hills on different 

 occasions, following the right bank of the Yuba on one excursion, 

 and visiting Bear Valley, in the High Sierras, on the headwaters of 

 the Yuba. It was very early in the season for collecting at that 

 altitude, but he obtained Ranunculus alismceafoliiis, Pseonia Brownii, 

 Hesperochiron Calif ornicus, Penistemon Menziesii, and other character- 

 istic plants of the High Sierras. A second visit to the Upper 

 Sacramento Valley to collect seeds completed his work in that 

 direction, and he left this region after three months' botanizing dur- 

 ing a most favorable season. A number of botanical collectors had 

 been on the coast before him, but none except General Fremont and 

 members of the Wilkes party had penetrated the interior, and none 

 had collected in the High Sierras unless we except Fremont. 



Hartweg next went southward and traveled through the Salinas 

 Valley to the missions of La Soledad and San Antonio. From 

 San Antonio he writes: "A range of mountains^ extends along the 

 coast, attaining a great elevation, which, although apparently 

 barren as seen from the mission, I was assured on the western flanks 

 toward the sea is covered by large pines. Descending the western 



^ The Santa Lucia Mountains. 



