24 Popular Studies of California Wild Flowers 



The gold diggers, despite their eagerness to uncover the wealth 

 within the hills, were struck by the unusual beauty of these flowers, 

 as evinced by the fact that 'many pressed specimens were enclosed 

 in their letters back home. They called it the "Gold Flower." In 

 the early fifties, the poppy was called the "Californicus." 



Its discovery to the botanical world was a very interesting 

 incident. In 1815, Count Romanzoff of Russia sent the "Rurick" 

 on an exploring expedition under the command of Otto von Kotzebue 

 to find if possible a passage north of America connecting the 

 Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. A group of enthusiastic young scien- 

 tists accompanied the expedition : Aelbert von Chammisso, poet, 

 author and botanist ; Dr. John Frederick Eschscholz, a German sur- 

 geon and naturalist, and a youth by the name of Choris, the artist. 

 Kotzebue, twenty-eight years of age, was the son of a great German 

 dramatist whose plays were then the most popular in the world. 

 Eschscholz, but twenty-two years old, had already won fame as a 

 naturalist.. Choris, two years younger, afterward became one of 

 the historical painters of Russia. Chammisso, the botanist, thirty- 

 four years old, was a French nobleman by birth. He had won fame 

 as the author of an unusual story entitled "Peter Schlemihl," an 

 amusing tale of a man who sold his shadow. It was this group of 

 distinguished young men who first sent specimens, notes, and draw- 

 ings of the California Poppy to Europe. But it was not until 1820 

 that Chammisso published a detailed account of the flower, which 

 he had named Eschscholzia in honor of his friend and co-worker, 

 and calif ornica, after the land of its birth. This account was first 

 published in Madrid ? Spain, just a century ago. Chammisso re- 

 ferred to his companion in labor as "the very skillful, very learned, 

 very amicable Eschscholz, Dr. of medicine and equally expert in 

 botany and entomology." From seeds collected by Chammisso the 

 flower was probably introduced into European gardens, and later 

 its popularity was established by seeds collected by David Douglas 

 and sent back to the Royal Horticultural Gardens in England, from 

 whence they were later distributed to all parts of .the world, including 

 the Atlantic States, which received their first seeds from Europe. 



California is particularly rich in romantic incident. The dis- 

 covery of the Eschscholzia calif ornica Cham, is an interesting tale. 

 But to Californians this beautiful blossom will always be simply the 

 Golden or California Poppy; after all, are not the people the best 

 judge of what a flower should be called a flower so endeared to 

 them by memories of home and by its sunny, friendly presence every- 

 where throughout the length and breadth of the Golden State ? 



In a February, 1910, number of Collier's Weekly, Caspar Whit- 

 ney deplores the gradual disappearance of the California Poppy 

 fields. He writes : 



"Fifteen years ago, California had acres upon acres of those 

 beautiful flower things, the Wild Poppy. Even ten years ago, great 

 golden fields of these exquisites of the open plenteously adorned the 

 southern half of the State. Then tourists began pulling them up 

 by the armsful by the roots. Not with the wish to elsewhere 

 establish poppy loveliness through transplanting did these vandals 



