IRISH GARDENING 



VOLUME XVII 



No. 191 



Editor -J. W. Besant. 



A MONTHLY JOURNAL DEVOTED T(J THE 

 ADVANCEMENT OF HORTICULTURE AND 



JANUARY 



ARBORICULTURE IN IRELAND ^o.w voRK 



Some Notes on the Wild Flowers of 

 Southern California* 



Uv C. H. BRETHEKTON. 



'i, HE State of California 

 runs north and south for 

 sonjything like a thousand 

 miles, and is traversed 

 in the same direction by 

 two mighty mountain 

 ranges, the Coast Range 

 and the Sierra Nevada. 

 These enclose a hot 

 liut (where irrigation is available) immensely 

 fertile valley w-hich runs jiractically from one 

 end of the State to the other. Between the Coast 

 Range and the sea is another belt of land of vary- 

 ing width, also fertile, well timbered, except in 

 tile south, and preserved by the sea breezes froni 

 the intense heat of the central plain. The Sierra 

 Nevada forms the eastern lionndary of the State 

 for two-thirds of its length, but in Southern 

 California proper the desert runs unbroken from 

 the San Bernardino mountains to the Great 

 Salt Lake. Every degree of drought and humidity, 

 of heat and cold, can be found in some part of 

 the State. No part of it, however, is sub-tropical— 

 heat and humidity are^ nowhere found in con- 

 junction — and winter in the south is the rainy 

 season. Dates ripen in the extreme south, but 

 only in a particular tract that lies several hun- 

 dred feet below sea level, and was once the delta 

 of the Colorado River. The indigenous trees of 

 Southern California are sycamores and live oaks 

 in the watered valleys and conifers in the moun- 

 tains. But the Eucalyptus has been largely intro- 

 duced and the cotton tree also. Aciiiid.'t. PJii/fu- 

 hifca Pauloicnia, the Umbrella Tree, and numerous 

 other foreigners may also be considered, by thio 

 time, to have naturalized themselves in favoured 

 localities. Greasewood and Manzanita are the 

 typical shrubs of the hot mesas and the sun- 

 beaten mountain sides; but these give way in the 

 canyons and arroyos to numerous others — 

 willows, .soap bu.sh, wild currant, brambles, and, 

 aliove all, the Californian lilacs (Ceaiiothus). One 

 nnist see these in their native haunts to realise 

 that the most floriferous British specimens are 

 but dwarfs struggling to survive. Two other fine 

 Californian shrubs— the Carpenteria and the 

 Slippery Elm (Freinuntki)—the latter is really a 

 t,-ee — are natives of the southern canyons. The 

 l)lant life of Southern California closely resembles 

 that of South Africa in that plants enabled by 

 nature to withstand or evade xerophytic condi- 

 tions — annuals, bulbs, succulents, &c. — abound. 



No sun-baked arroyo or mountain side is wdthout 

 its bristling ariay of " Spanish bayonets " 

 il'iuca). The writer was once saved a fifty-foot 

 fall and the probability of a broken leg thirty 

 miles from nowhere by a magnificent specimen 

 of this arresting plant that chanced to be growing 

 from a crevice between two rocks. It was a pene- 

 trating experience, and probably one of the few 

 rare occasions wdien a good word has been said 

 for this vegetable porcupine. As elsewhere the 

 most abundant ■■ and versatile members of the 

 Californian flora ai-e the weeds. Every species 

 that runs riot in an English garden has its 

 counterpart, but tlie Californian gardener's tw;o 

 worst foes are both imported strangers. One is 

 locally known as Devil grass, or Bermuda grass, 

 or .Johnson grass. This pertinacious grass will dive 

 under a fence and come up ten feet away in the 

 middle of a trim lawn. Once in, nothing can stop 

 its ravages until winter comes and a degree or two 

 of frost kills it. That completes the ruin of the 

 lawn. The other enemy, also, of the lawn is a 

 sort of lotus with very dark green leaves that 

 make unsightly blotches on the grass. Nothing 

 can eradicate it, for it will travel about a foot 

 below the surface. Of the wild weeds, the most 

 noticeable are tar weed and sage brush, which 

 together provide the typical chaparal smell that 

 any Californian nose would recognise twenty-five 

 miles away. The Jhiturti. a low-growing species, 

 with handsome white flowers and large dusty- 

 looking leaves, is a common weed of the coast 

 region" But the pahu is divided between the wild 

 turnip and wild umstard. Individually incon- 

 spicuous, their mass effect is remarkable — the 

 latter a dazzling mass of " (.'oleiiian " yellow, 

 while the wild turnip ranges from lilac and blue 

 to terra cotta and pale straw. 



Coming to the flowers that are prized both 

 locally and abroad, it is hard to know where to 

 begin. But one's thoughts turn naturally to the 

 commoner ones, such flowers as children would 

 bring home in armfuls after a day in the foot- 

 hills and canyons. Indian paint brush, mission 

 liells and bluebells (Biod'ums), shooting stars 

 (l)o(lccathcon), chocolate lilies (FiitiUanus), 

 woolly blue curls (Salvia), I>elphiitium>:, red and 

 blue, scarlet columbine, Eschsrhultzia.t (the Cali- 

 fornian State fiow^er). Baby blue eyes (Xemo- 

 philo), tidy tips (Layia cletjans), Plat(/stemons, 

 Blue-eyed grass {Sisyrincliium), Pentstemons. 

 rordifoUus, spectahile, ccenthus. hrtrrophylliis, 



