IN CALIFORNIA 187 



favorite of roses, and was in all gardens. Some- 

 times it bloomed white, too; and in winter, when 

 the weather was mild, it would bloom again and 

 so sweet to smell. This was the rose that was planted 

 in all gardens when I was a little girl; and when 

 the Americans found out how good a land is Cali- 

 fornia to live in and came and settled they found it 

 blooming everywhere la rosa de Castilla. And it 

 was good for medicine, too. We made a wash from 

 it for bad eyes, and a salve for the hands when the 

 skin was sore. ' ' 1 



"And my gillyflowers you like them? All the 

 old gardens had them alelilla, we call them. And 

 the malvas" so she called the geraniums. Did 

 you ever notice how like mallow leaves their foliage 

 is! and malva means mallow. "There are many 

 malvas. There is malva luisa. Then there is 

 malva real, a little tree, like. And this pretty bush 

 is another, malva rosa." 



It was a twisted little shrub with maple-like 

 leaves and flowers suggesting single red roses. 

 Once I had seen it growing wild on Santa Catalina 

 Island and knew it as Lavatera assurgentiflora. It 



i Through the kindness of Professor C. S. Sargent, to whom a speci- 

 men of this rose was sent, it has been identified as Rosa gallica, a 

 species of many forms cultivated in Europe for centuries. It is in 

 the same class with the famous Damask rose of our grandmothers' 

 gardens everywhere. 



