142 WITH THE FLOWERS AND TREES 



balsamic odor, and is made into tea, or, when dried, 

 is smoked or chewed like tobacco. 



"And what disease is it good for!" I ask Man- 

 uelito. 



"Por todo, senor for every thing," he says with 

 prodigal inclusiveness ; but every old Calif ornian 

 will tell you it is the finest thing in the world to 

 loosen up a hard cough. The taste of the leaf is 

 more or less resinous and bitter at first, but this 

 gives place to the peculiar sweet and cooling sensa- 

 tion which follows the chewing of mint and a sip of 

 water. To the wild-flower lover one of the mem- 

 orable sights of a California outing is furnished by 

 the thickets of yerba santa in bloom the violet or 

 lavender flowers covering the bushes like a gauzy 

 veil gently undulating as the breeze sweeps over 

 them. Another yerba of great reputation is yerba 

 mansa to be found in the damp meadowlands and 

 those boggy places which Californians are disposed 

 to call "senecas" (Spanish, cienagas). This is the 

 Anemopsis Calif ornica of the botanies, a low-grow- 

 ing plant which from its leafage we might guess to 

 be a sort of dock, until in late spring the flowers ap- 

 pear and put another face on the matter a conical 

 disk surrounded by a showy white involucre. The 

 inflorescence is one of Nature 's make-believes, as in 

 the case of the dogwood bloom the showy white- 



