272 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 437. 



overlooked by the windows of its chief apartments ; in 

 England they are protected from the street by high walls or 

 hedges. After colonial days we more frequently set our 

 houses back from the street without giving them the full 

 protection of the high English enclosure. But until within 

 recent years they were separated, and, in general effect, at 

 least, to some degree secluded, by walls or hedges or 

 palings of moderate height and by screening plantations. 

 Each still had individuality ; each looked like a home, even 

 though it gave evidence that its owners loved entire seclu- 

 sion less than their English cousins. Within recent years, 

 however, there has been a widespread desire to abolish 

 the last semblance of separateness — of privacy. In count- 

 less old towns and villages the barriers have been de- 

 stroyed, and each man's garden merges in his neighbor's, 

 while all merge indistinguishably in the grassy bor- 

 der of the street. On many new streets the most 

 admired type of place seems to be one where there is 

 an abundance of well-kept grass and a great overabun- 

 dance of graveled drives and walks ; where there 

 are no large trees nor luxuriant shrubberies, but a 

 casual sprinkling of small supposedly "ornamental" trees 

 and isolated shrubs : no masses of freely flowering plants, 

 but many gaudy beds of clipped foliage-plants or formally 

 arranged flowers, dropped, like chromos on a green wall, 

 up<m the bright emerald expanse of the lawns. Here, 

 indeed, is no privacy, no seclusion, no possibility of out- 

 door repose, or of outdoor activity, except in the form of a 

 game of tennis played under the eyes of the whole town ; 

 and, of course, there is no more beauty than there is com- 

 fort or convenience. It is idle to think that people who 

 live, or children who are brought up, in a place like this, 

 will learn to love the country, or will be civilized and sweet- 

 ened by the influences of nature. They are actually worse 

 off than the dweller in cities; for he may at least know 

 what natural beauty really is and appreciate it when he has 

 the chance to see it, while they confuse natural beauty 

 with the barren ugliness they have themselves produced, 

 and can have no eyes or heart for its charm when it really 

 lies before them. 



Truly, Mr. Sturgis's appeal for more privacy, more seclu- 

 sion, more individuality in our suburban homes needed to 

 be made. The explanation of the belief that he has not 

 made it along just the right lines must be postponed to 

 another day. 



The Redwood Flora in April. 



DURING the month of April I left my home in the 

 interior valleys and rode to the Mendocino sea 

 coast. The air was sharp and the high mountains in the 

 north-east were covered with snow, but the valleys and 

 hillsides about them were in the full springtide of 

 bloom, and flowers were everywhere. Ten miles of 

 mountain climbing, and the summit of the range which 

 separates the valleys from the coast region is reached at 

 an elevation of 2,300 feet. The elevation seemed to 

 make little perceptible difference in grass or flowers, 

 although the woods showed the influence of the sea 

 breezes in greater vigor. A mile to the westward the be- 

 ginning of the great Redwood forest could be seen, and 

 north, south and west, as far as the eye could reach, 

 stretched the noblest forest in the world. Half of all the 

 Redwood forest was in view, and from the Russian 

 River, south of here fifty miles, to Alaska, stretches an 

 almost unbroken wood. A few miles down a tortuous 

 grade and the forest's vanguard is met. The first Redwoods 

 were fine specimens, five to seven feet through and hun- 

 dreds high. This was at Orr's Springs, and a small grove 

 on the mountain side contains some of the largest trees in 

 Mendocino County's forests. 



In the cold and deeply shaded canon, vegetation was 

 backward, and our pretty Wake Robin, Trillium ovatum, 

 so like the T. grandiflorum of the eastern woods, was 

 nearly gone. A few still retained the deep purple petals 



to which their pure white flowers change with age. 

 Trillium sessile, var. Californicum, was in blossom in the 

 small openings along the stream. In our part of California 

 they are at first white with a purple centre, and later take 

 a purple tinge ; about San Francisco Bay, and in the 

 southern Sierras they are a red purple, while a flower 

 reached me this season from the Big Tree region of the 

 Sierras which was of that velvety black purple one sees in 

 some Arums. In February, when I was last in the Red- 

 wood region, Cardamine pausisecta was in bloom, a very 

 attractive little plant with the lower cordate leaves purple 

 beneath and mottled in white and purple above. The 

 flowers are rather attractive, white, with the purplish caste 

 so common in these woods. In April it was still in bloom 

 in cold spots. 



For miles down the cool canon, in groups of a few, or 

 occasional beds of hundreds, Erythronium giganteum was 

 conspicuously beautiful. This is the Dog-tooth Violet of 

 the Californian Coast Ranges and beloved of all children. 

 As E. grandiflorum it is the best known of the many 

 Pacific coast Erythroniums in the garden. The straw- 

 colored flowers with orange centres recurve to the stem. 

 In these woods they grow very large, and I have seen 

 them frequently with eight to sixteen on a stem, and three 

 to four inches across. In April they are in full bloom and 

 worth a pilgrimage to see. The leaves are as large as a 

 man's hand and mottled in mahogany. 



On down through the dense woods, past openings 

 cleared by the loggers of the big coast sawmills, and 

 through small openings, on which, for some unexplainable 

 reason, the forest never grew, but which support a luxuri- 

 ant growth of grass, the road passes. In places rock 

 masses were to be seen clothed with Ferns, Polypodiums 

 and Adiantums, the latter just throwing up their young 

 fronds. 



A glimmer of pink in the deep woods between two Red- 

 woods shows where a colony of that dainty Orchid, Calypso 

 borealis, has established itself in the mold. It is a rarity in 

 these woods, and the flowers duly prized. Miles below, 

 the road leaves the canon, and by a grade along the 

 mountain side ascends to the ridge which divides two of 

 the principal streams of the Redwood belt. The grade is 

 on the north side of the canon through dense woods, and 

 the flowers are correspondingly backward. Where it 

 crosses a small stream the Sword Fern, Aspidium munitum, 

 var. rigidum, grows in great beauty, and the new fronds 

 are well developed. This Fern, rare in the interior, grows 

 in great numbers in all of the canons and shaded woods 

 of the immediate coast region. On a shaded bank by the 

 roadside the Wood Anemone, A. nemorosa, was in full 

 bloom. In February it was blooming in warm places. 



On the south side of the ridge the flowers were farther 

 along. In a little opening I saw many Zygadenus panicu- 

 latus in flower. The branching stems were two feet high, 

 and the greenish white bloom not unprepossessing. Along 

 the road I noticed the pink Lathyrus venosus, our Wild 

 Pea ; handsome plants of Cynoglossum grande, with pur- 

 ple, white-centred flowers, and the first flowers of Ceano- 

 thus thrysiflorus, a handsome shrub, which on the coast 

 takes possession of the cleared woods and attains the size 

 of a small tree ; Blue Blossoms it is called here, and it de- 

 serves a high rank for beauty. When the long slopes are 

 wavy masses of its blue flowers it is a lovely sight. 



In the timber the Blueberries grow tall, five to seven 

 feet. At this time they are beginning to blossom, but the 

 pink flowers are not as showy as the dark red new growth 

 which was starting. Most of the greens of the Redwood 

 are dark and sombre at maturity, but the new shoots a light 

 green, and with the fresh plumes of the brake, now just 

 unfolding, the feathery shoots of the Douglas Spruce and 

 the foliage of the Sweetbrier the woods are lighter than at 

 any other season. At a wayside ranch, as the little clear- 

 ing on the steep hillside is called, the Apples are in flower. 

 The road again returned to a river-side, and for miles was 

 through a forest wdrich was cut about twenty years ago. 



