26 NOTES ON LILIES 



Sierra Mt, between 2,000 to 4,000 feet. 7. The Uglier Sierra lelt. 8. The- 

 Alpine region. 9. The Eastern slope, and 10 the Eastern basin." Garden,. 

 vol.S,p. 1,1874. 



Let us, in the first place, says Dr. Kellogg, " consider the Lilies, how 

 they grow." In a climate like that of California, distinguished by a wet 

 and long dry season, we find these bulbs located say about 6 to 10 inches 

 deep, and the fibres or roots shooting downwards 10 inches to a foot below 

 that point, in search of food and moisture. Is it not evident, then, that 

 such bulbs require a flower-pot at least 18 inches deep ? Hence, ordinary 

 pots must be utterly useless, or worse cramping or inadequate to meet- 

 even primary natural conditions. Let anyone take an improvised 5-gallon 

 tin can, or the like, which is good enough, not to say the best ; paint it 

 rudely inside and out to preserve it ; punch, say at least, three large holes 

 in the bottom of it ; plant, as in nature, in any good compost, and set 

 your can, keg, or crock, as the case may be, in a shallow pan of water. 

 You will soon have the pleasure of seeing a stout stem, of the thickness 

 of your thumb, rising up and flowering gorgeously. If a plant spends its- 

 vital force in vain, searching for food or moisture, little or nothing else 

 can be accomplished. Abronia Arenaria, as the specific name indicates,, 

 grows in sand. If found on deep sand-drifts of the bay shore of San 

 Francisco, or inland, it shoots down a stout fusiform root of indefinite 

 length, but often poor and puny is the top that creeps not far from the 

 crown, with perhaps few flowers and a little fruit. But mulch a moist, 

 brackish, cracky soil, with only 6 or 8 inches of sand, and it will go down, 

 to, or a little into it, spread abroad its forked subdivisions and fibres, 

 almost or quite horizontally; the crown-sprouts now run riotously, 

 mantling the sand with vines, full of pink flowers in fruitful umbels- 

 unnumbered. Cultivators are apt to complain that many of their bulbs, 

 ere they bloom, lose one essential beauty of plants, viz., their radicle 

 leaves, which, they say, " dry up, and leave the stems looking naked and 

 bare." Bulbs are frequently found upon exposed hills and slopes, rocks, 

 &c., descending down dry and very hot valleys into debris and alluvial, 

 bottoms, where sand or loam with underground moisture abounds. The 

 very same plants are seen to rejoice best where they find some shade and 

 shelter, otherwise they bespeak a struggle for existence, i.e., their leaves, 

 prematurely or naturally dry up early to save exhaustion. In half shade, 

 along high banks and slopes, contiguous to creeks, with adequate subsoil 

 moisture, we see Cydobothra Alba, with long and beautiful glaucous leaves,, 

 say an inch and a half wide, 18 inches to 2 feet in length, accompanying 

 the flowers, ten to twenty in number; the golden G. Pulchella and most, 

 others tolerate more sun and drought, with their companions the Man 

 zanita (Arctostaphylos Glauca) Oaks, &c., near whose shades it is wont to. 

 linger ; but its best forms love rich, rocky, half shady drains, leaf and 

 flower being companions to the close. Witness Seubertia Laxa, 2 to 4 feet 

 high, and the Dichelostemas and Brodiceas, with from ten to fifty flowers,, 

 and green leaves with similar grace, completeness, and beauty. The 

 list might be extended ; but what we desire to say and impress on our 

 readers is, that the same plants exposed are barely one-quarter as large as- 



