FIRECRACKER FLOWER (Brodicea cocctnea, Gray). Flow- 

 ers an inch long, tubular, brilliant crimson, with green tips, 

 pendulous, in a loose umbel, produced at the summit of a leaf- 

 less stem, 1 to 3 feet tall. Leaves grass-like and radical, as 

 with most species of Brodisea. Canons and open rocky moun- 

 tain woods of Northern California and Oregon, blooming 

 from May to July. 



Firecracker-flower (or Firecrackers, a terse variant) is one of 

 all too rare instances of a popular name of obvious appropriate- 

 ness; for the drooping, crimson clusters of long, straight blos- 

 soms bear a striking resemblance to a little bunch of Chinese 

 firecrackers. An account of the plant's discovery by its first 

 scientific describer, Dr. Alphonso Wood, is pleasantly given by 

 Mr. Thomas Meehan in "The Native Flowers and Ferns of 

 the United States." It was pointed out to Professor Wood by 

 a stage-driver in the Trinity Mountains, as a flower so be- 

 ( loved by his little daughter Ida May, that the family called 

 it after her, Ida May. Wood, in describing the plant, believed 

 it of a new genus, which he called Brevoortia, and sought to 

 preserve the sentiment of this particular species by naming it 

 Brevoortia Ida-Maios. Most later nomenclaturists have dis- 

 carded his name for the one given at the head of this page. 

 16 



