354 THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFOKNIA 



The Sierra region is the largest of the three main 

 divisions of the bee-lands of the State, and the 

 most regularly varied in its subdivisions, owing to 

 their gradual rise from the level of the Central 

 Plain to the alpine summits. The foot-hill region 

 is about as dry and sunful, from the end of May 

 until the setting in of the winter rains, as the 

 plain. There are no shady forests, no damp glens, 

 at all like those lying at the same elevations in 

 the Coast Mountains. The social composite of 

 the plain, with a few added species, form the bulk 

 of the herbaceous portion of the vegetation up to a 

 height of 1500 feet or more, shaded lightly here and 

 there with oaks and Sabine Pines, and interrupted 

 by patches of ceanothus and buckeye. Above this, 

 and just below the forest region, there is a dark, 

 heath-like belt of chaparral, composed almost ex 

 clusively of Adenostoma fasciculata, a bush belong 

 ing to the rose family, from five to eight feet high, 

 with small, round leaves in fascicles, and bearing a 

 multitude of small white flowers in panicles on the 

 ends of the upper branches. Where it occurs at 

 all, it usually covers all the ground with a close, 

 impenetrable growth, scarcely broken for miles. 



Up through the forest region, to a height of 

 about 9000 feet above sea-level, there are ragged 

 patches of manzanita, and five or six species of cea 

 nothus, called deer-brush or California lilac. These 

 are the most important of all the honey-bearing 

 bushes of the Sierra. Chamcebatia foliolosa, a little 

 shrub about a foot high, with flowers like the straw 

 berry, makes handsome carpets beneath the pines, 

 and seems to be a favorite with the bees ; while 



