FEBRUARY 15, 1913 



117 



Tlie thimbleberry in bloom. — Photo by Wesley Foster. 



THE FLOWERS OF THE FOOTHILLS 



BY WESLEY POSTER 



The love for and knowledge of the flow- 

 ers in a way measures the quality of the 

 beekeeper. If he has not an intimate ac- 

 quaintance with the honey flora in his 

 neighboring fields, hills, and ravines he will 

 be handicapped as a successful beeman. 



Let us go for a walk on an early May 

 morning. Before we have gone more than 

 half a mile up the slope toward the foot- 

 hills we stop and listen to the hum of the 

 bees passing over our heads back and forth 

 from the apiaries in the valley to the haw- 

 thorn, chokecherry, and thimbleberry bloom 

 in the foothills. 



We find the chokecherries and the haw- 

 thorn lining the streams issuing from every 

 ravine and canyon. The hawthorn is so fra- 

 grant that the aroma is sickening, and the 

 bees swarm over the shrub-like trees in 

 thousands. It is a merry trade that is kept 

 up ; and all the bees have to do is to glide 

 downhill for the matter of a mile or so to 

 get home with their load of hawthorn hon- 

 ey. A hive of bees has filled a super of 

 comb honey from the wild-flower bloom be- 

 fore the 10th of May, though this is uncom- 

 mon. The great benefit of this early bloom 

 is to build up the colonies in numbers for 



the alfalfa and sweet-clover flow in June, 

 July, and August. 



The thimbleberry is a beautiful shrub, fit 

 for any jjark or lawn ; and I'll wager that 

 the nurserymen sell a good many of them 

 for that purpose too. They are easily ob- 

 tained, for there is scarcely a boulder where 

 a thimbleberry-bush is not growing beside 

 it, throwing its branches laden with bloom 

 over the edges of the rock in a very pleas- 

 ing and artistic way. 



The thimbleberry has a large white flower 

 an inch and a half to two inches in diam- 

 eter. The center is yellow, and the bees 

 wallow around in the pollen, getting al) 

 covered with it. The berry, when ripe, is 

 about the size of a red rasjDberry, and near- 

 ly the color, though not so brightly colored. 

 It is not so edible, though when we are out 

 for a i^icnic we eat them and call them good, 

 probably because they grow wild and are 

 plentiful. They are mostly seeds, with but 

 very little juice to furnish a taste. Perhaps 

 Mr. Burbank or some other plant-^vizard 

 could develop something worthy from the 

 plant. A patch of thimbleberries would 

 certainly be a delight to the eye. 



But we are out in search of flowers, and 

 here we come to a flower-covered slope of 

 the mountain covered with wild sweet Will- 

 iams. (See cover picture.) This is not a lion- 



