IN CALIFORNIA 103 



of half of California with the glow of its impris- 

 oned sunshine. To a degree that can be said of 

 no other State device, it is the floral emblem of the 

 Commonwealth not a token voted by a little knot 

 of flower enthusiasts, but the spontaneous choice 

 of a whole people, who love it and admit it into 

 their daily life. The eschscholtzia blooms inter- 

 mittently throughout the year, if the conditions suit 

 it, but it is during the months of spring that this 

 queen of California flowers holds her especial court. 

 Acres upon acres, at that season, by the sea's edge, 

 in the inland valleys, and far up on unforested 

 mountain sides, it spreads solid sheets of vivid 

 orange and yellow, visible for miles color so in- 

 tense as to be actually painful to some eyes, and 

 men, women and children flock to the fields poppy- 

 hunting with almost the unanimity of the Japanese 

 at their cherry festival. Yet it is not nowadays to 

 be found just anywhere; one may travel an entire 

 spring day and see never a poppy; in a sense, it is 

 an elusive flower and the fact of a colony of it being 

 in a certain place this year is no guarantee that we 

 shall find it there next spring. At the base of the 

 San Gabriel Sierra north of Pasadena is an ele- 

 vated mesa tilted to the south, thrusting its tongue 

 into a canon's mouth. It was known in Spanish 

 days by the name of La Mesa de las Flores (the 



