SUPPLEMENT 



have the children watch the climbing carefully. The subject of 

 climbing plants is one of great interest, and will be referred to in other 

 chapters ; the attention of the children should be directed to the 

 subject at every opportunity. In this case, if practicable, mark a 

 young tendril, note how it grasps an object, when it coils, etc. 



Perennial lupines, as well as the annual species, are quick to 

 respond to the rains. In the vicinity of Los Angeles, L. albifrons 

 blooms all the year on northern slopes, but the flowers are much more 

 abundant during the rainy season. The wild currants (Ribes glutino- 

 sum, or kindred species) are in full flower in December in the foot-hills 

 of Southern California, and are common early flowers throughout the 

 state. Their fancied resemblance to the trailing arbutus is of course 

 only in color and form. The flower clusters are more or less pendent 

 to escape wetting moisture is fatal to pollen and often the cluster is 

 exactly beneath a leaf, but the protection of the flowers by leaves is 

 not so marked as in the gooseberries. I have seen the flowers pollin- 

 ated by bees, hive bees and the larger native bees, also by butterflies. 

 The stigmas I have noted have been usually, but not always, slightly 

 beyond the anthers. They are held rigidly in the entrance to the 

 flower and are sure to be struck by the tongue of the entering guest. 

 The anthers, which open inward, are ranged round the narrow 

 entrance, and are likely to be struck also. I have seen undoubted 

 cases of self-pollination when the anthers and stigmas were at equal 

 heights, although when the flower first opens the anthers are held at 

 a slight distance from the stigmas. I find the plants thronged with 

 bees when the weather is at all favorable. 



The gooseberries that flower in December and January in the San 

 Gabriel mountains, are Ribes amarum and R. hesperium, species 

 allied to R. Menziesii, which is common in other parts of the state. 

 They are beautiful, graceful flowers, -with their long, red calyxes, 

 reflexed sepals, and white petals, and they seem to me to be mainly 

 pollinated by humming birds. Ribes aureum or R. tenuiflorum, the 

 yellow "flowering" currant, and Ribes speciosum, a very, common 

 later scarlet gooseberry, will be referred to again. The wild lilac 

 Ceanothus, will also be considered later, when the children are better 

 prepared to understand its pollination. Ceanothus crassifolius 

 flowers early, and has rolled leaves with furry backs that assist tran- 

 spiration now by keeping the dew from wetting the stomata, and later 

 on, check transpiration, as has been shown before. 



You are likely to find several deciduous shrubs that, like the Ribes, 

 require little heat to bring out the new leaves, and these leaves are 

 almost sure to present some features of special interest. Several 



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