Popular Studies of California Wild Flowers 45 



back of the leaves and stems are covered with little hooked bristles, 

 which enable it to climb over other plants, and the low shrubbery 

 and underbrush is sometimes thickly covered with its dull purple 

 and white blossoms. 



It is safe to say that the frail little flower, Nemophila insignis 

 Dougl., or Baby Blue Eyes, as all love to call it, is a favorite flower 

 with all, and particularly with children. No sweeter blossom ever 



traced our land. Yet in common with many of her beautiful sister 

 owers, who have become candidates for extermination, she now 

 seeks hiding places and more remote localities for her colonies. Year 

 by year they creep farther and farther away from the centers of 

 population in their eagerness to escape the destructive hand of man 

 and to continue the propagation of their species. 



In future days when the sweet little blossoms have been almost 

 wholly eradicated from California landscapes, our children's chil- 

 dren, undoubtedly, will purchase seeds of the cultivated varieties, 

 from the florists, many of whom now get them from Europe. They 

 will grow them with great pride in their gardens. Perhaps some 

 one will remember and say of this flower: "Long ago, the fields for 

 miles around were blue, blue as the sky, with its blossoms." 



"You never miss the singer till the sweet-voiced bird has flown. 

 You never miss the color of the flozuer till it's gone." 



