Through San Oorgonio Pass. 115 



Bernardino, the Southern Pacific railway traverses the San Mateo 

 caiion, where the cultivated fields are too frequent to be very inter- 

 esting to a botanist. 



From Redlands, on the 9ch of April, '91, I tooli a wood road 

 which led off to the left, among the unsettled hills, where nature 

 still rules suprem-". The canon and iiillsides were covered with a 

 thick growth of brush, Rhus ovata, shrub oaks and California lilacs 

 being especially conspicuous. Castilleia foliolosa grew in clumps 

 among the bushes, a foot or more high, and forming a brilliant dis- 

 play on the steep caiion sides. The floral bracts are of a bright 

 orange — vermillion at the tips — each an inch or more long, forming 

 a dense head, among which the shorter light greenish-yellow corollas 

 of the flowers are entirely eclipsed. 



In open places, Nemophila insignis, with its bright 'baby eyes,' 

 grew in clusters of surpassing beauty, and lined tlie roadside until 

 the eastern descent to the desert commenced. The flowers averaged 

 nearlj^ an inch in diameter, of a loveh^ e^'anine blue, with a lighter 

 or a white center. It covered the hillsides in places for acres in ex- 

 tent, appearing like a patch of the blue sky reflected upon the 

 earth. 



Growing on some of the steeper cafion sides were clusters of a 

 species of Phlox, suflrutescent, two or three feet high, with a pro- 

 fusion of light rose-purple flowers, measuring one and one-fourth 

 inches across. The hirsute stem and foliage rendered the plant more 

 admirable at a distance than in the hand, but is one which would 

 command admiration and attention anywhere, and one well worth 

 further cultivation. 



Among the annuals were Lupinus hirsutissimus, with liirsute 

 stems and foliage, attaining a hightof three feet or more, with spikes 

 of aster-purple flowers. In some of the open fields grew Sanicula 

 bipinuatifida, with its dense, ball-like umbels of deep dahlia-purple 

 flowers. This species of sanicle seems abundant in Southern Cali- 

 fornia, especially on adobe lands, in grain fields, or scattered over the 

 broad plains of the larger valleys. 



Layia elegans,with a center of a cadmium-yellow color, the rays 

 of a clear lemon yellow, tipped with white, grew abundantly on the 

 western slope from Riverside to the summit of the pass, and for a 

 ways down the eastern slope. At the summit another Layia without 

 the Avhite tips to the outer rays made its appearance, while a third 

 species of a clear white throughout, extended from the sandy plains 

 around Colton to the eastern or desert slope. The Layias are all 

 elegant plants, bushy and erect in habit, with flowers two inches 

 across and of a metallic brilliancy. Layia elegans has already 

 become favorably known in cultivation and the other varieties must 

 soon follow. 



Orthocarpus purpurascens is a peculiarly beautiful and showy 

 annual, a foor high, dittasely branching, erect in habit, producing 



