MEADOW FOAM (Floerkea Douglasii, Baillon). Flowers 

 showy, an inch or more across, yellowish fading to white at the 

 tips or sometimes rosy, bell-shaped, conspicuously veined, soli- 

 tary on naked footstalks rising from the axils of the much dis- 

 sected leaves. Blooming in the spring throughout much of 

 California, and north into Oregon. 



This charming annual, 6 or 8 inches high, one of many Pacific 

 Coast flowers introduced into Old World gardens three quar- 

 ters of a century ago, is a conspicuous feature of wet meadows, 

 particularly of Central California, and the effect of its masses 

 of creamy flowers rippling amidst the green is quite appro- 

 priately suggested by the common name. The name Floerkea 

 commemorates a forgotten German botanist, H. G. Floerke, 

 who lived in the early part of the 19th century. All botanists, 

 however, do not agree that our plant is truly a Floerkea, and 

 some of them put it in the closely related genus Limnanthes, 

 and indeed into a separate family which they call Limnan- 

 thacece. Among florists the flower is usually referred to as 

 Limnanthes Douglasii, R. Brown. 



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