TREE POPPY (Dendromecon rigidum, Benth.). Flowers 

 a clear bright yellow, solitary, an inch or two in diameter, on a 

 bushy, slender-branched shrub, 3 to 10 feet high with pale 

 green, rather stiff, willow-like leaves the bark whitish. 



The Tree Poppy is found in California, seeming to prefer 

 open, sunny hillsides, of the chaparral belt, though one may 

 encounter it also in bottoms bordering the streams of canons. 

 It is most at home in the southern end of the state, and a well 

 developed bush of it starred with its striking blooms of butter- 

 cup yellow is reward enough for a hard day's tramp. In my 

 experience its best flowering season is from March until June, 

 but as in the case of its more famous cousin, the Eschscholtzia, 

 there is hope of collecting it during any month of the year. 

 It is quite variable in its foliage characters and the size of its 

 flowers a fact that has led some latter-day species makers 

 to fall upon it and split it up into about twenty recorded spe- 

 cies. To the non-critical student, however, the one species, 

 as here described, is well enough for practical purposes. 



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