206 WITH THE FLOWERS AND TREES 



grasses that is, between 3,000 and 3,500 as are 

 native to the country east of the Missouri Eiver, and 

 north of Tennessee and North Carolina, the region 

 of Gray's Manual. Of this number there are per- 

 haps not over 200 native species common to both 

 floras. No wonder, then, that the newcomer in Cali- 

 fornia finds practically every plant a new species to 

 him, and many of them new genera. On the other 

 hand, certain familiar sorts are noticeably wanting. 

 This is particularly true of trees. The California 

 forests are largely coniferous. We search in vain 

 for native chestnut or beech, hickory or locust or 

 elm, linden or magnolia or tulip-tree. There is one 

 walnut, a small tree often a shrub, and not very 

 abundant the English walnut of the ranches being 

 of course introduced. There is a box-elder, but it 

 has a look of its own and is given varietal distinc- 

 tion by botanists ; and there is a versatile chinqua- 

 pin, which on high mountains makes a low-growing 

 chaparral, while under favorable conditions at lower 

 elevations it has been known to attain a height of 

 a hundred feet or more. Of three maples, two are 

 shrubby and mainly found off .the beaten track of 

 travel. The other, however, Acer macrophyllum or 

 big leaf maple, is one of the most distinguished of 

 trees, growing to a height of seventy-five or eighty 

 feet, and possessed of leaves typically maple-like in 



