346 THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFOKNIA 



found in flower only a few deep-set liliaceous plants 

 and eriogonums. 



June, July, August, and September is the season 

 of rest and sleep, a winter of dry heat, followed 

 in October by a second outburst of bloom at the 

 very driest time of the year. Then, after the 

 shrunken mass of leaves and stalks of the dead 

 vegetation crinkle and turn to dust beneath the 

 foot, as if it had been baked in an oven, Hemiisoma 

 virgata, a slender, unobtrusive little plant, from six 

 inches to three feet high, suddenly makes its ap 

 pearance in patches miles in extent, like a resurrec 

 tion of the bloom of April. I have counted upward 

 of 3000 flowers, five eighths of an inch in diameter, 

 on a single plant. Both its leaves and stems are 

 so slender as to be nearly invisible, at a distance 

 of a few yards, amid so showy a multitude of 

 flowers. The ray and disk flowers are both yellow, 

 the stamens purple, and the texture of the rays 

 is rich and velvety, like the petals of garden 

 pansies. The prevailing wind turns all the heads 

 round to the southeast, so that in facing northwest 

 ward we have the flowers looking us in the face. 

 In my estimation, this little plant, the last born of 

 the brilliant host of composite that glorify the 

 plain, is the most interesting of all. It remains in 

 flower until November, uniting with two or three 

 species of wiry eriogonums, which continue the 

 floral chain around December to the spring flowers 

 of January. Thus, although the main bloom and 

 honey season is only about three months long, the 

 floral circle, however thin around some of the hot, 

 rainless months, is never completely broken. 



