370 Life in the Open 



countless daisies, cream-cups of delicate design, yellow 

 violets, Mariposa lilies, the shooting-star, suggestive of 

 the floral procession that marches on with the coming 

 of winter days. The chapparal is now abloom, and in 

 mid-winter the flaming red of Heteromeles is seen 

 everywhere, and near the mountains the delicate laven- 

 der of the wild lilac. It is winter, but in some in- 

 comprehensible way the flowers are in bloom, only the 

 sycamores and a few other trees being bare. The 

 nights are cool, a fire is acceptable morning and even- 

 ing, and the rains leave a mantle of snow on the high 

 peaks ; San Antonio, San Jacinto, San Bernardino are 

 white all winter. 



I can sit in my garden, amid roses and orange 

 blossoms, and watch the snow blowing up the north 

 slope of the former, forty miles away, and often the 

 entire range is white with snow down to the twenty-five- 

 hundred-foot line ; but it will be gone on the lower 

 range perhaps by noon, when the houses in the valley 

 have thrown open doors and windows. The snow 

 on the high mountains gives a delightful tang to the 

 air, and makes the nights cool ; but the roses bloom on 

 and on for ever, and the tomato ripens in protected val- 

 leys. I hardly know to what to compare such a winter ; 

 possibly October in the East, when occasional frost 

 comes, but there is no autumnal display in the low- 

 lands, no masses of colour except in the cafions ; in- 

 stead of dropping, leaves come out at Christmas. The 

 yule-tide wreaths are of Heteromeles berries which 



