100 WITH THE FLOWERS AND TREES 



Why, man, the gardens of Europe are full of Cali- 

 fornia wild flowers, and have been for three genera- 

 tions raised from seeds carried there by English 

 collectors such flowers as clarkias, collinsias, lu- 

 pines, gilias, eschscholtzias, godetias, phacelias, 

 mariposa tulips, penstemons, and a score more. 

 Now here'' 



He plucked from the grass a little cup of blue as 

 tender as the hue of the sky above us, and con- 

 tinued : 



"Now this baby-blue-eyes, as we call it nemo- 

 phila only the other day I was looking over an 

 English garden book and found a note of this little 

 beauty which is as well known there as pansies are 

 with us, and the writer, a practical gardener, not a 

 sentimentalist, spoke of it as the most precious of 

 annuals. That's in England, mind you, whose gar- 

 dens hold the pick of the whole world ; and yet year 

 by year our real estate men are running gutters and 

 laying down concrete walks on the graves of my- 

 riads of these and sister creations of the most ex- 

 quisite loveliness. Of course I know that this is 

 largely the fate of native growths everywhere be- 

 fore the advance of what we are pleased to call 

 civilization; and I'll be frank enough to say I'm not 

 altogether for locusts and wild honey I like my 

 cakes and ale too; but what I do say is that much 



