Popular Studies of California Wild Flowers 39 



a bit amused by their various statements. Said that "grand old 

 man" of the Yosemite, Galen Clark, who was for many years the 

 guardian of this national wonderland, and who, after ninety years 

 of age, wrote three small books on the Yosemite, its Indians and 

 its legendary lore. (I quote from one of these volumes) : 'This 

 blood-red and brilliantly attractive plant is met with in a few locali- 

 ties in the Yosemite. Its stout, succulent stems, covered with wax- 

 like, bell-shaped flowers, and delicate, semi-transparent, slender 

 leaves that intertwine among the bells, all being blood red, make it 

 the most conspicuous and beautiful flower in the Sierras. The name 

 it bears might give the impression that it grew in the Sierra snows ; 

 but this is not the case. Sometimes, however, a snow storm may 

 come in the spring after it is up in full bloom. It is thought by some 

 botanists to be a parasitic plant. This has been well proved to be 

 untrue." 



Enos A. Mills, author of a book on "Our National Parks," had 

 this to say of our strange California bloom : "The Snow Plant is a 

 curiosity and attracts by its brilliancy of color. The plant and 

 bloom are blood-red, but this herb is as cold as an icicle. It is not 

 a parasite, but is isolated and appears to hold itself aloof from all 

 the world. When caught by late snows, it makes a startling figure, 

 but it does not grow up through the snows." 



John Muir, great naturalist, says : "To tourists the most attract- 

 ive of all the flowers of the forest is the Snow Plant, Sarcodes san- 

 guinea; it is a bright red, fleshy, succulent pillar 'that pushes up 

 through the dead needles in the pine and fir woods like a gigantic 

 asparagus shoot. In a week or so it grows to a height of six to 

 twelve inches. Then the long, fringed bracts spread and curl aside, 

 allowing the twenty or thirty five-lobed, bell-shaped flowers to open 

 and look straight out from the fleshy axils. It is said to grow up 

 through the snow ; on the contrary, it always waits until the ground 

 is warm, though with other early flowers it is occasionally buried 

 or half buried for a day or two by spring storms. The entire plant 

 flowers, bracts, stems, scales, and roots is red. But notwith- 

 standing its glowing colors and beautiful flowers, it is singularly 

 unsympathetic and cold. Everybody admires it as a wonderful curi- 

 osity, but nobody loves it. Without fragrance, rooted in decaying 

 vegetable matter, it stands beneath the pines and firs lonely, silent, 

 and about as rigid as a graveyard monument." 



Edwin Markham, poet, says : "On higher levels of the moun- 

 tains the Snow Plant pushes up like a sturdy mushroom through the 

 carpet of pine needles ; there, among the soft browns of the earth 

 and the deep green of the shadows, this uncouth shape sucks its 

 bright scarlet from the ground along the edges of the receding snows. 

 In shape and consistency it looks as if some ingenious Yankee had 

 whittled it out of the heart of a watermelon." 



Mary Elizabeth Parson writes most charmingly of finding her 

 first Snow Plant: "I came unexpectedly upon this scarlet miracle, 

 standing in the rich, black mould in a sheltered nook in the wood. 

 A single ray of strong sunlight shone upon it, leaving the wood 

 around it dark, so that it stood out like a single statue in a tableau 



