22 WITH THE FLOWERS AND TREES 



of the bark, which is very smooth and thin and of a 

 chocolate color, contrasting well with the pale green 

 of the leaves." There is no doubt about that be- 

 ing the shrub which more than any other, is ca- 

 pable of arresting the attention of the traveler even 

 to-day in the California mountains the famous 

 manzanita. In the open valleys the neat groves of 

 live oak, which had stirred earlier travelers to ad- 

 miration and thoughts of home, were to Fremont, 

 too, like orchards in an old cultivated country. An 

 interesting entry in this journal, is of meeting with 

 the pretty rosettes of the filaree (Erodium cicu- 

 tarium), which Indian women were gathering into 

 their conical burden baskets to be consumed as 

 food. That was in an unfrequented part of north- 

 ern California and seventy years ago, and it makes 

 one wonder if this pretty pasture plant may not be 

 really indigenous to the State instead of introduced 

 from Europe, as the botanical brethren would have 

 it. 



In those heavenly days of early spring the San 

 Joaquin valley was gay with wild flowers, and some 

 of the creek banks absolutely golden with California 

 poppies. In some of the arroyos, giant lupines 

 grew one may still find them twelve feet high, 

 and clustered so that three or four plants together 

 formed a huge bouquet ninety feet around, the 



