98 WITH THE FLOWERS AND TREES 



These flowers are among the most famous of Cali- 

 fornia wildings, both at home and abroad where 

 they have long been grown in gardens. There are 

 some forty species of them indigenous to the United 

 States, nearly all of which are confined to the 

 Pacific Coast. The flowers of all are remarkable 

 for their beauty, and are of a great range of color, 

 white, yellow, lilac and half a dozen shades of pur- 

 ple, often strikingly marked with lines and dots and 

 eye-like spots in a manner suggesting the gay wings 

 of a butterfly. It was the latter peculiarity which 

 won the flower the name of mariposa, meaning but- 

 terfly, by which the Spanish-Calif ornians call it. 

 In botanical parlance the genus is Calochortus. 

 The most usual popular name would seem to be 

 mariposa lily, which is proper enough, as the plant 

 is of the Lily family ; but its nearest relation in that 

 large tribe is really not the lily but the tulip, to 

 which the resemblance of the flowers in most species 

 is apparent even superficially. 



In plant nomenclature the Spanish-speaking Cali- 

 fornians are quite as happy as in the geographical 

 namings, as is instanced in the case of another 

 abundant spring-bloomer on our foothill slopes 

 Orthocarpus purpurascens. Whole acres are some- 

 times given a noticeable magenta tinge by the 

 crowded brush like heads of the plant, which owes 



