IN CALIFORNIA 219 



with it as to be all but inaudible. They call it tar- 

 weed, too, which would be good enough except that 

 that name properly belongs to two or three genera 

 of Compositae, with similar sticky coats. We'll 

 find them hereabout, too." 



Some weeks after that in the cool of an early 

 August morning, as I walked campward after a bout 

 with the trout, I wars surprised to see a part of the 

 woodland which I had thought flowerless, starred 

 with hundreds of lovely daisy-like blooms, yellow- 

 rayed with red centers. Stooping to pick some, I 

 found my hands quickly gummed with a viscid ex- 

 cretion from the plants, and I did not need the Pro- 

 fessor to tell me I had now discovered a simon-pure 

 tarweed. I did, nevertheless, pilot him to the spot 

 at noon, only to find to my astonishment, that every 

 flower had vanished as in thin air! The blossoms 

 were nocturnal. It was the species called Madia 

 elegans, and as the summer merged into autumn I 

 had an opportunity to extend my acquaintance to 

 half a dozen species both of Madia and the kindred 

 genus Hemizonia. The latter tribe is exclusively 

 Californian, the flowers often handsome in white or 

 yellow or pink, all opening at evening and closing 

 in the brightness of the risen sun. It includes some 

 twenty-five species growing in various parts of the 

 State, and in all sorts of situations in valleys and 



