124 PACIFIC STATES FLORAL CONGRESS. 



to drop from them instead of evaporating, as on horizontally-grown 

 leaves. Under one of these trees there is a cave, the home of some 

 small animal. Over the entrance is growing a carpet of pale green 

 moss. Here, in a thallus cradle of darker green, is a colony of young 

 sulphur-back ferns. These humble members of the plant world, in 

 gratefully accepting the jeweled drops of moisture from the tree above, 

 teach in silence a lesson of content. 



In spite of the obstacles of twenty years ago, the Golden Gate 

 Park is to-day a reality. One after another these obstacles have been 

 removed. The drifting sands have, to a great extent, been confined 

 by planting the yellow lupines and the thick, strong bunch-grass, known 

 as Amophylla Arrcnaria. 



The water supply is more satisfactory than in the past. The scrubby 

 and irregular native trees form a protection and wind-break for their 

 more delicate relatives from abroad. 



Numerous car lines have shortened the distance between the bay 

 and the park. The city itself is extending a hand in greeting, and, 

 sometime, will enclose it in protecting arms. A member of the State 

 Floral Society wrote a very able paper on "Wild Flowers/' and sug- 

 gested that they be planted and perpetuated in our public parks. In 

 furtherance of this idea, a few of the members of the society offered 

 to send seeds of wild flowers to the park superintendent. He said to 

 them, in answer, that there were "miles of wild flowers, already, planted 

 in the park." His invitation to come and see them was accepted with 

 delight. On April 12 of the present year the members were escorted, 

 for an hour, between beds of wild flowers, and were convinced that they 

 would not become extinct. Blue and purple, the most advanced colors 

 in flower communities, are well represented by the phacelia, nemophila, 

 collinsia, and lupine. The California lilac, or ceanothus, also blue, 

 was raised from seed and then planted in the grounds. Columbines, 

 cream-cups, and eschscholtzias, all native flowers, grow side by side 

 with rare cultivated flowers from foreign shores, forming a cosmopoli- 

 tan community, as did our people in pioneer days. 



Golden Gate Park and our two leading universities, of which Cali- 

 fornians are very proud, are well worth a visit from tourists. They 

 present a fine field for the naturalist. The study begun in our humble 

 parks and gardens of forty years ago may here be continued, but 

 never finished. The future possibilities of these fields of learning are 

 almost beyond the imagination of the most sanguine lover of flowers, 

 and above the hopes of the most zealous floriculturist. 



We may not all be professionalists, and understand the scientific 

 cultivation of plants. The amateur, while at work, may learn from 

 the growing plants, expanding blossoms, and ripening seeds, a vain- 



