Popular Studies of California Wild Flowers 43 



loveliness delighted this plant enthusiast. The first flower he took 

 in hand that spring day, he tells us, was the "beautiful wild goose- 

 berry (Ribes speciosum), a flower not surpassed in beauty by the 

 finest Fuchsia." However, this bloom had previously been de- 

 scribed by another. The second blossom he gathers on that inter- 

 esting occasion is entirely new, and in writing to a friend he speaks 

 of it as "a humble but lovely plant, the harbinger of California 

 spring." Just why the botanist should have designated this flower 

 as "harbinger of California spring" has seemed to puzzle some 

 people. Many outdoor enthusiasts who commune with our wild 

 flowers in their native haunts will tell you how absolutely unreliable 

 a floral calendar can be. They may ask with the poet, "When is 

 spring in California?" Our native flowers, Nemophila as well as 

 others, have a habit of blooming in season or out of season. I have 

 found the Baby Blue Eyes blooming in February, and at the same 

 time gave greetings to any number of other friendly little faces 

 such as Milk Maids, Red Maids, Wake Robins, and a host of pretty, 

 shy dwellers of the woods and fields ; while Manzanita, Flowering 

 Currant and other blossoms had held high carnival with the bees 

 and butterflies long before their arrival. California springs are not 

 as other springtides and cannot be reckoned by the calendar. It is 

 unfair to the rest of the beauties who are doing their best to lead 

 the procession of vernal handmaidens to the spring to give prece- 

 dence to one who is occasionally tardy in opening her pretty blue 

 eyes ; but her little ladyship was a great favorite with Douglas, and 

 we are not surprised that he sought to honor so exquisite a darling. 



Most people are unaware of the fact that Baby Blue Eyes, so 

 illy appreciated on her native heath, is now one of the rq^t cher- 

 ished annuals in European gardens. Indeed, foreign catalo^^ are 

 said to speak of it as "the most precious of annuals" ; fo^^pivid 

 Douglas carefully gathered its seeds along with those of many other 

 interesting species and sent them back to the jflfeal Horticultural 

 Gardens, and while a few were kept merely as lljBrftcal curiosities, 

 at least one hundred and thirty varieties of California annuals were 

 continually grown and the seeds were distributed ti all parts of the 

 world. It is rather thrilling to think that CaliforiT|a!s wild flowers 

 long since transformed the gardens of Europe, which contained but 

 few annuals before their introduction. Ribes speciosum (our wild 

 fuchsia-flowered gooseberry) and Nemophila insignis Dougl. (Baby 

 Blue Eyes) are considered the most popular. 



Baby Blue Eyes is a low-growing, herbaceous little plant that 

 is, or was, quite generally distributed about the State. In the days 

 gone by, when these bonny blossoms were as free as the air they 

 breathed, the Nemophilas, in places, literally sheathed the earth for 

 miles with that color which seemed but a reflection of heaven's own 

 azure, or together with their closest friends and companions, the 

 pretty Creamcups, they wove dainty carpets of softest creams and 

 heavenly blues, converting hills and plains into dreams of fairy- 

 land, which have given way to cultivated fields, cities and towns or 

 well-cropped pasture lands. 



