FALSE HELLEBORE. SKUNK CABBAGE (Verdtrum cali- 

 fornicum, Durand.). Flowers greenish- white with a green 

 base in a large panicle, 1 to 2 feet long, containing both perfect 

 flowers and those of separate sexes, on stout stems 3 to 7 

 feet tall, with plaited, sheathing leaves. Blooming in summer 

 in mountain meadows and along streams in most parts of Cali- 

 fornia, north to Oregon and east to Wyoming and Colorado. 



The False Hellebore is one of the most showy of mountain 

 plants, chiefly because of its leaves. These have a pronounced 

 allurement from the time they appear in the early spring un- 

 til the frosts of autumn turn to gold the natural plantations of 

 them that beautify many a mountain meadow. 



There are two other species indigenous to the Pacific Coast, 

 V. fimbriatum, Gray, a peculiar species of which the flowers 

 are fringed and spotted, and V. viride, Ait. The latter with 

 green flowers, and a slenderer plant in every way than V. 

 californicum, occurs in the East as well as the West, and is the 

 celebrated Indian Poke, of which a decoction was used by the 

 aborigines as an emetic. It is said some tribes resorted to it 

 in the selection of their chiefs the candidate who could 

 most effectively stand up under the successive doses, being 

 regarded as the fittest to govern. 

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