CALIFORNIA LILAC (Ceanothus thyrsiflorus, Esch.). Flowers 

 blue paling sometimes to white, fragrant, individually small 

 but showy in dense panicles; leaves evergreen, shiny, alternate, 

 an inch or so long, elliptic, with three nerves from the base. 

 A shrub or small tree from 2 to 25 feet high, the branches and 

 twigs noticeably angled. Blooming in spring on chaparral- 

 covered slopes, or at the sea-edge (where it is a low shrub), 

 or among the redwoods, from the Santa Cruz Mountains north- 

 ward to Oregon. 



There are a score or so of species of Ceanothus indigenous to 

 the Pacific Coast, to many of which, besides this one, the name 

 California Lilac is applied. The little flowers are very inter- 

 esting if noted closely under a magnifying glass, because of the 

 odd-shaped petals, each with a long claw terminating in an 

 incurving of the blade resembling a hood or the whole ar- 

 rangement suggesting a tiny tobacco pipe, to quote Doctor 

 Sudworth. The different species are often diffcult to identify, 

 and the botanists' troubles in this respect are increased by the 

 fact that hybridization is believed to take place between some 

 species, making confusion worse confounded. 



