INTRODUCTION. 



In presenting this collection of Wild Flowers, I have selected those from my sketches 

 that are most beloved by the people of the coast, and are new and of interest to lovers of 

 wild flowers in the East. 



I have given them to you as I found them growing in their natural simplicity along 

 the trails of the mountains, and by the streams in the valleys. 



They are but a handful compared to the multitude we find all along the coast. All 

 the varieties of the East are found here. There is no peak so -high, or valley so deep, 

 but you see their lovely faces waiting to welcome you. They smile and nod as if inviting 

 you to catch them. You reach up to pluck one, and you discover a bright-colored neigh- 

 bor beckoning you higher, and so you climb to the very top, all unconscious of the dizzy 

 height, lured on by these bright-arrayed children of the mountains. 



In the places most difficult of access I found the most beautiful flowers. It would 

 seem as if they wished to hide the delicate members of their family from the rude gaze of 

 the world, sheltered in some nook of the rocks, like a miniature conservatory tenderly 

 cared for by the fairies of the mountains. 



Often you will see a most beautiful specimen growing just beyond your reach on 

 some rugged point. The desire to possess it is so great you can hardly resist the danger- 

 ous reach. I once saw a whole bed of fine bell-shape flowers on a point above me, im- 

 possible to climb. I had spent days in trying to find this variety, and here they were a 

 few feet above my head, but no human hand could touch them. They grew wondrously 

 beautiful while I gazed, and I imagined they grew larger and larger until they looked 

 like a whole chime of bells ringing out a dirge to my disappointed ambitions. 



In Southern California you can pick wild flowers every month in the year, and in 

 February they make their appearance all over the state, and continue their line of march 

 up the coast, and by April you find them in the fields and woods of Oregon. 



To those who are familiar with the flowers of California, may they welcome these in 

 my collection as old friends, and to those who are strangers, may they prove an introduc- 

 tion to the home of the beautiful wild flowers of the Pacific Coast. 



E. H. T. 



