190 WITH THE FLOWERS AND TREES 



of autumn, but rooted in the ground of this pleasant 

 land where no frost hard enough to kill it comes. 



"Laurel," said Dona Margarita, but she pro- 

 nounced it low-rel'; and indeed its leaf is laurel- 

 like. "This grew from a tree that was in the gar- 

 den of the great governor of California, Don Pio 

 Pico. He gave me a cutting." 



A bed of poppies dormideras, or sleepers, in 

 Spanish were wide awake in the sun, hobnobbing 

 with sprawling nasturtiums flaunting in their flow- 

 ers the yellow and red of old Spain. These the little 

 lady called mastuerzos, while her cheerful mari- 

 golds which had bloomed steadily through the win- 

 ter, masqueraded under a name that sounded like 

 sampasuches. Her chrysanthemum plants just 

 started into vigorous growth had, in her speech, a 

 more understandable name octubres, or as we 

 should say, Octobers. And there were pinks, cla- 

 veles. 



"You know this pretty flower,*' she said, pluck- 

 ing me a blue larkspur ;" to us it is another sort of 

 spur, espuela de caballero the horseman's spur." 



And so we came to a little corner where kitchen 

 and medicinal herbs, sweet and bitter, were grow- 

 ing, and Dona Margarita stooped to pass a loving 

 hand across their fragrant tops. Then she smiled, 



