PART I.] MOUNTAIN VEGETATION IN AMERICA 143 



water. They belong to quite a distinct plant of the Buck- 

 wheat family Eriogonum. The family we know is nearly all 

 composed of weeds, and the genus, which has many members 

 in America, is seldom in the least attractive ; but this one is 

 quite a gem of a rock-plant handsome umbels of primrose- 

 yellow springing abundantly from dull brownish tufts of leaves 

 2 inches high, making it as pretty as it is distinct. Far 

 away, on a bare, gravelly hillside, vivid red tufts are seen ; 

 these prove to be another equally beautiful kind of Eriogonum, 

 the leaves of which assume a deep, shining blood colour. 



Here and there the withered stems of Lilies may be seen ; 

 Washington's Lily a tall, noble, and fragrant kind and 

 several other Lilies occur abundantly. The stems of some 

 which I found in little ravines were quite 8 feet high. 

 The Soap-plant a bulbous perennial is abundant on all the 

 lower mountains and on the coast hills. Numerous bulbs of a 

 high order of beauty occur on the mountains and plains of 

 California, but they mostly bloom in spring and we only see 

 their withered stems. 



Another very beautiful rock-shrub, quite distinct from 

 anything we have in our European Alps, is the Bryanthus. 

 After trudging for hours over snow and rock in quest of this, 

 I had given it up, when a spray, with a withered truss of 

 bloom, was seen, and soon I had dug a few score plants of 

 it from beneath a couple of feet of snow. This Bryanthus 

 may be roughly described as having the leaf of a heath, 

 with handsome crimson flowers, like those of a small rhododen- 

 dron, and forming bushes from 4 to 10 inches high. 

 Another rock-shrub, quite distinct from all others, is a 

 creeping Ceanothus, which runs along the ground as closely as 

 Twitch. On the lower hills, where it grows more freely, the 

 shoots march in parallel lines over the ground, covering 

 it with a rigid carpet of dark green leaves. 



One of my objects in coming here was to see the Californian 

 Pitcher-plant (Darlingtonia) in a wild state. This plant re- 

 sembles the Sarracenias of the eastern side of the continent, 

 the chief difference being that it has a cleft appendage to the 



