40 AS CALIFORNIA FLOWERS GROW 



from the North stopped in their progress south and 

 where plants of the South stopped in their advance 

 north, so that it is the home of both northern: and 

 southern species. Then, too, in it still are found 

 plants which have ceased to exist in a wild state 

 anywhere else on the surface of the earth. There 

 are peculiar species of the Ceanothus and Manza- 

 nita and of other plants that grow nowhere else. 



The best known plant endemic to the region is the 

 Monterey Cypress, whose native habitat is only in 

 two groves along that coast. The grove at Cypress 

 Point extends for two miles along the water and for 

 sixty rods inland; the one at Point Lobos is much 

 smaller. The Monterey Cypress natively is the 

 most restricted of any coniferous plant in the world. 

 This seems peculiar when one knows how plants 

 disperse their seeds so broadcast, and one sees that 

 each Monterey Cypress cone produces about one 

 hundred and fifty healthy seeds, all light-winged 

 and easy to be carried by the wind. It seems even 

 more strange when one sees how the Monterey 

 Cypress is scattered over the world under cultiva- 

 tion. The seeds in open-air nursery beds germinate 

 in two or three weeks, and the seedlings flourish like 

 weeds. Its seeds were first taken abroad in 1838; 

 and before the end of the century, it was the most 

 widely cultivated cone-bearer of Southern and 

 Western Europe, South America and Australia, 



