PRICKLY PHLOX (Gilia califdrnica, Benth.). Flowers salver- 

 form, 1 inch to 1^ inches across, rose-pink or lilac with a white 

 centre, solitary and sessile or a few in a cluster at the ends of 

 the branchlets. Leaves opposite and crowded along the 

 woody branches, divided into several sharp-pointed, rigid, 

 needle-like segments. A shrubby plant whose clustered, 

 Iristling stems grow to a height of 2 or 3 feet, their armor of 

 spiny leaves making the flowers as hard to gather as thistle 

 blooms. 



Set like wild roses in gipsy hair, the bright blossoms of the 

 Prickly Phlox glow in the dark tangle of the chaparral in late 

 spring and early summer from Monterey southward, and onl}' 

 the blind can fail to notice them. In their season they are 

 among the commonest of wild blossoms in Southern Cali- 

 fornia a favorite habitat being on dry hillsides, whence an- 

 other popular name, Mountain Fink. It is also abundant in 

 those tracts of semi-desert which everywhere in Southern Cali- 

 fornia lie close to the borders of the irrigated country, and there 

 blooms gloriously amid the cactus and bowlders of sandy 

 washes. 



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