SO AS CALIFORNIA FLOWERS GROW 



semination of her seeds, but in quite a different way. 

 She crowns each seed with a tuft of silky hairs so 

 that it can float off on the air. Which seed gets the 

 surest transportation, the one that depends upon the 

 air or the one that hooks on some moving creature? 



The common name, Milkweed, explains itself. 

 The botanical name of the genus, Asclepias, is 

 given in honor of Esculapius, the physician of the 

 Greeks, who first appears in Homer as a human 

 being and later enters their mythology as the God 

 of Healing. His daughters were Hygieia and Pan- 

 aceia and Aegle. From the first, we have today 

 "Hygiene," the science of Health; from the second, 

 "Panacea," a remedy for all diseases; and for the 

 third, there is named a family of Indian plants with 

 high medicinal value. We might surmise from its 

 title that Milkweed has curative qualities. Perhaps 

 it has, but, as a matter of every-day fact, the foliage 

 of our California species is poisonous to animals. 

 Perhaps this quality is what makes the bees drowzy. 

 Study the Milkweed of your locality. You may dis- 

 cover some fact important to the science of healing. 



One of the California wild flowers you know 

 best, wherever you may live, is the Castilleja or 

 Paintbrush. She, too, has evolved a peculiar 

 floral envelope. Perhaps you have been thinking 

 that all the brightly colored part was the flower. 

 Just examine the stem carefully, and you will see 



