IN CALIFORNIA 223 



porches of mountain cabins; for it appears to be a 

 favorite posy with mountaineers, the most careless 

 of whom could hardly fail to notice it flaming up at 

 his feet. In the Yosemite National Park it is now 

 forbidden to pluck it a wise provision as the 

 thoughtless habit of many people to tear up and 

 kill what arrests their momentary interest, has 

 threatened to exterminate this wonderful plant in 

 the neighborhood of the Yosemite. Club-like and 

 stocky of form, it is not of much appeal in any par- 

 ticular except color ; but this is of such a rich, glow- 

 ing crimson, especially when lighted up in the sun- 

 shine, that the most stolid can hardly fail of ad- 

 miration. Finding it on a summer day, when snow 

 is long past, one is disposed to question the correct- 

 ness of calling it snow plant ; yet the name is proper 

 enough, for there is no question that it is at times to 

 be seen blooming in the midst of snow. In high 

 altitudes many flowers, because of the shortness of 

 the season, start into growth and blossom at the 

 edge of melting snow banks, and the snow plant 

 often does the same. A belated snow-fall a not 

 unusual occurrence in the High Sierras even in 

 June piling about such plants, would give the effect 

 of their having actually bloomed in the snow. As 

 a matter of fact, the young plants have been ob- 

 served to have pushed above the ground in autumn, 



