THE SANTA CRUZ MOUNTAINS 



(tall, red-barked trees, bearing the blossoms of a 

 blueberry-bush !), and bays, also in bloom, with 

 the glossy leaves of which I was continually set- 

 ting my nose on fire. "Very good to inhale," a 

 young man tells me, when I meet him in the road 

 and speak to him about the size and beauty of 

 the trees. I had thought only of svielliug them. 

 " Very good " they must be, if pungency be the 

 size and measure of beneficence. 



Of course, in this strange land, a man, espe- 

 cially a man with no manual of the local botany, 

 must have his curiosity piqued by a world of 

 things as to the identity, or even the relationship, 

 of which he cannot form so much as a plausible 

 conjecture. Here, for instance, is a low shrub, at 

 this moment in bloom. It looks like nothing that I 

 have ever seen, and I can only pass it by. Here, 

 on the other hand, is another low, waist-high shrub 

 that has the appearance of a birch ; and such it 

 is, for a smell of the inner bark is proof conclusive. 

 But what kind of birch t And at my feet are 

 shining green leaves that prophesy of something, 

 I have no notion what. 



By and by I come to a place where in the 

 shadow of thick trees a dainty white violet is 

 growing. This I have seen before. Viola Beck- 

 withii, mountain heart's -ease. Miss Parsons's 

 " Wild Flowers of California," a book to which 

 155 



