IN CALIFORNIA 59 



and every spring it is exclaimed over by rapturous 

 tourists and residents alike, who gather it by the 

 armful for home decoration. It is one of the plants 

 that have an assured place in American literature, 

 as every reader of California's most popular ro- 

 mance, "Bamona," will recall. 



The plants that people denominate weeds, are to a 

 great extent foreigners which have confounded lib- 

 erty with license and made a nuisance of themselves. 

 The prevalent weeds of the Pacific Coast, the ob- 

 server soon finds, are quite different from those on 

 the Atlantic side of the Continent; and he is not 

 long afield in California before he runs afoul of that 

 Old World herb that our grandmothers back East 

 used to cultivate in their gardens for its tonic and 

 cough-subduing qualities to wit, horehound. It 

 was probably first brought to California in the early 

 days of the American occupation, by some settler 

 who liked to keep up the old practise of having a 

 root of it in the garden for domestic emergencies. 

 To-day it is one of the most widely distributed weeds 

 in the State, taking possession of road-sides, old 

 fields, vacant lots and pastures, and disputing with 

 you the possession of your flower beds and truck 

 patches. Late in the summer and in the autumn it 

 is as annoying to the pedestrian as the beggar's 

 ticks are in the East, its prickly calyces fastening 



