POPPY FAMILY 



565 



The historic species is E. californica Cham., collected by Chamisso in the San Francisco 

 sandhills in 1816. If a sandhill plant be followed through its flowering season, it exhibits in 

 succession characters which have been 

 used by two recent authors as differ- 

 entiae for specific segregates. Much 

 more striking are the results of field 

 studies and experiments carried on 

 during a period of eighteen years 

 upon the form known as E. croeea 

 Benth. This form reaches its high- 

 est development in the rich deep 

 loams of interior valleys of Califor- 

 nia. When the rains break in 

 October and November the plants 

 develop tufts of leaves from the 

 root-eroivn which continue to grow 

 during the rainy season. In plants 

 of a single colony and unquestion- 

 ably of one species the foliage tufts 

 exliibit severally various hues of 

 green. In April these plants begin 

 to flower. The flowering stems are 

 stout, rigidly erect, leafy, or some- 

 times seapose, 1 to 2 feet high, 

 bearing flowers with de«p orange or 

 copper-colored corollas 1% to 2% 

 inches long and exhibiting torus rims 

 1 to 2 lines wide (fig. 121). No 

 other form equals this interior ver- 

 nal one in size of corolla, width of 

 torus rim, and gorgeousness of color- 

 ation. By the middle or end of 

 April the rains cease, and as the 

 weeks advance the successive flower- 

 ing from the same individuals shows 

 yellow-tipped petals or j'ellow corol- 

 las with a golden center. By the 

 first or middle of May the suriimer 

 heat of the rainless season begins, 

 and the upright stalks cease to flower 

 and begin to ilry up. Their function 

 is gradually assumed by stems from 

 the same root-crowns, which give rise 

 to the summer flowering. These 

 stems are slender, a-scending or dif- 

 fuse, and bear flowers with straw- 

 yellow corollas ^/^ to 1 inch long 

 and torus rims Vi to y2 line wide 

 (fig. 122). Sometimes these same 

 plants bear small golden corollas or 

 more frequently yellow corollas with 

 golden center. This flowering is 

 characteristic of and continues 

 through the arid or heat season until 

 October. Hundreds of such plants 

 gromng in wild land have been care- 

 fully marked and connected with 

 numbered iron stakes so that the 

 individual could be positively iden- 

 tified in a succeeding month or sea- 

 son. 



Eschscholtzia californica is highly 

 sensitive to rainfall, to humidity, to 

 temperature and to the character of 

 the soil. Individuals, for example, 

 of the E. croeea form, after a given 

 vernal flowering may not produce 

 aestival flowers; sometimes the spring flowering of a given year represents the end of the 

 reproductive period for that individual. On the other hand plants which have flowered during 



Fig. 121. EscHscnoLTzi.\. californica Cham. var. 

 CROCEA Jepson. E. croeea Benth. This figure 

 shows the habit of the plant at the vernal flower- 

 ing stage in AprU. Observe the strictly erect 

 stems, large corollas and broad torus rims. From 

 this same root crown a crop of small flowers on 

 slender diffuse stems is produced in summer and 

 early fall. X %. Cf. Fig. 122. Also see p. 570. 



