SOME HEALING PLANTS 125 



Micromeria being for its small flowers. Douglasii 

 is for David Douglas, a Scotch botanist, who en- 

 tered Washington and Oregon in 1825, and reached 

 California in 1830. He remained here collecting 

 until 1832, gathering over five hundred species. A 

 few years after, he lost his life in the Sandwich 

 Islands, now Hawaii. 



Yerba Buena was the first name of that part of 

 San Francisco now the business section. The Pre- 

 sidio on the Golden Gate was Presidio de San Fran- 

 cisco d'Asis; the Mission in the warm belt was 

 the Mission de San Francisco d'Asis; but the early 

 settlement in the cove on the east was called Yerba 

 Buena because of the delicate vine covering its 

 slopes. Yerba Buena it remained until after the 

 American Occupation. Its change of title was due 

 to an inspiration which gave a vision of the future 

 of our city. 



The first American Alcalde of San Francisco, 

 Lieutenant Washington A. Bartlett, heard rumors 

 that Mariano G. Vallejo and Robert Semple had 

 contracted together to start a town on the Straits of 

 Carquinez which would be a rival of Yerba Buena 

 and that they had named it Francisca after General 

 Vallejo's wife. Alcalde Bartlett realized that any 

 town on the Bay of San Francisco bearing the name 

 similar to it would attract more attention from the 



