December 9, 



■1 



Garden and Forest. 



493 



downward, and when the ends are all ablaze with flowers 

 it makes a unique and handsome display. 



The American Wistaria, too, will endure various modes 

 of treatment, and, like its Asiatic relative, can be pruned 

 and trained into a handsome shrub. I have trained one 

 about a post some six feet in height, and keep it cut back, 

 and with its first 'flowering j n late spring it is a mass of 

 bloom from base to summit. After the first heavy flower- 

 ing is past it continues to bloom more or less all summer. 

 Vineland, n.j. Mary Treat. 



A Canon near Ukiah. — II. 



SOME travelers have said that California has no Ferns 

 and no sweet-scented flowers. If they would follow the 

 line of one of the lumber flumes close to the coast in this 

 county they would apologize for the first statement, and if 

 they once had the pleasure of inhaling the fragrance of the 

 Ruby Lily, Lilium albescens, they would repent of the 

 other. L. rubescens ranges from Sonoma County north, 

 possibly to the Oregon line. It is widely distributed, yet 

 seldom seen even by flower lovers living near its home. 

 This is because it prefers the highest slopes in the Red- 

 woods, the Chapparal, or rocky places densely shaded by 

 the true Live Oak, Quercus chrysolepis. As all these spots 

 are somewhat inaccessible, our finest Lily is scarcely known 

 even where it is commonest. The bulb is ovate and ordi- 

 narily four to six inches in circumference. The leaves are 

 all in whorls, dark green in color. Its height varies greatly. 

 A forest fire helps it wonderfully, and the year succeeding 

 a fire nearly every little bulb will flower. Some plants may 

 be less than two feet high, with two or three flowers, but 

 in deep soil where they are not too much shaded the old 

 bulbs throw out immense stalks. I have often seen stalks 

 seven feet high with twenty-five flowers, and in one case 

 nine feet high with thirty-six flowers. The blossoms in 

 well-grown plants are three inches long and trumpet- 

 shaped. At first white, thickly dotted with purple, they 

 turn purple and then to a deep ruby. On one stalk all 

 shades can be seen. Compared wi ";h L. Washingtonianum, 

 the petals are much broader and the fragrance heavier. A 

 single flower in a book has perfumed it for months, and 

 the odor of the fresh flowers is exquisite. I did not 

 know of their existence in Doolan Canon until one day 

 the wind wafted their perfume to me, and later, far up the 

 hill, I found a large grove of Tanbark and Redwood and 

 this Lily. 



The commonest Fern of these canons is one of the Aspi- 

 diums, A. rigidum, var. argutum. It is low, deciduous, 

 growing in loose, rather dry, soil on deeply shaded hill- 

 sides, and is quite fragrant. Two other Aspidiums (Sword 

 Ferns) grow in this canon. A. monitum, var. imbricans, 

 is a large Fern, and here prefers shady slopes in rocky 

 debris. It is dark green and rather handsome. A. aculea- 

 tum, var. lobatum, is an elegant Fern, rare on cliffs close 

 to the stream. 



In the loose rich soil close to the stream the little decidu- 

 ous Maiden-hair, Adiantum emarginatum, is plentiful, and 

 many shaded slopes are covered with this delicate fragrant 

 Fern. It is much like A. Farleyense, but a lighter green. 

 It starts early, and by May is at its best, while by August 

 little of it is left. On the same cool slopes grows the Scarlet 

 Larkspur, Dianthus nudicaule, and its tall racemes are in 

 most appropriate company. A little later, and while the 

 Maiden-hair is still fresh, a yet more beautiful companion 

 appears, The Fire-cracker, Brodiasa coccinea. This plant 

 likes these cool slopes, and in June its tall wing-scape 

 rises to two or three feet, crowned with the crimson flowers 

 in an umbel. There are rocky ledges and cliffs farther up 

 the stream where it thrives still better and forms hanging 

 gardens. It is one of many plants which thrive better with 

 civilization, for when the Redwoods were cut the condi- 

 tions most favorable to its growth were created. The little 

 Gold Fern, Gymnogramme triangularis, is plentiful through- 

 out the canon where the soil is loose and gritty and the 



shade not hetvy. Some sleep banks among the Chapparal 

 growth are thick with it, and on the cliffs of the middle 

 canon it grows under the shelving rocks. Its three-cor- 

 nered fronds are dark green above, golden below. It is 

 not generally supposed to stand frequent summer water- 

 ing, but at home a nice clump grows under the same con- 

 ditions that Aspidiums and Asplenium thrive in, except that 

 the Gold Fern is better drained. 



A mile or so above the valley there is a long stretch of 

 the canon where the stream flows between rocky walls 

 with barely footway along the side. On the cliffs, which 

 are well shaded by trees standing in the stream-bed and 

 by others above, many Ferns and Mosses find a congenial 

 home. In many places the rocks are covered with one 

 solid mass of Polypodium Californicum, and in early spring 

 the descending lanceolate fronds are a pretty sight. In the 

 loose soil at the base of the cliffs Aspidium riginum, var. 

 argutum, and Maiden-hair grow plentifully. In the crevices 

 A. aculleatum, var. lobatum, grows, while on the moist 

 rocks on the sunny side of the canon, growing under the 

 bushes that hang to the rock, is a very delicate Pellaea, P. 

 andromedifolia. It has a brown polished stalk with ellip- 

 tical segments, and is little inferior to Maiden-hair in deli- 

 cacy. Not so the other Pelkca of these canons. P. 

 ornithopus grows in dense tufts on the hot slopes where 

 in the Chemise brush some rocky point has broken down 

 in a mass of fine debris. Roasted by the sun during the 

 long, hot summer days, it revives with the first rains in the 

 fall and begins its growth. It is fully as ornamental as an 

 old broom. 



There is one other Fern in the canon, the Chain Fern, 

 Woodwardia radicans. It is a Fern of the stream-sides 

 and springs. Along the brook, scattering clumps can be 

 seen, with ovate-lanceolate fronds two to four feet long, 

 and spreading gracefully. It is an evergreen, and the 

 fronds of one season persist in good form until the fronds 

 of the next year are well developed. Beautiful as it is in 

 the canon, it is only to be seen at its best where it grows 

 in the peat and mold of some of the mountain springs. 

 T. re the fronds are in dense thickets often seven or eight, 

 and in cases eleven, feet high. It is the favorite decorative 

 material in the Coast Range region. 



The first shrub to come in leaf in the spring is the Cali- 

 fornian Buckeye, /Fsculus Californica. Long before other 

 buds swell, its light green leaves appear. It grows in the 

 mountains to the height of ten to twenty feet, many- 

 branched, from a warty base. Its shade is not dense, and 

 it grows mostly in very warm loose soils, and Ferns and a 

 variety of annual flowers seem to live within its protec- 

 tion. Its most beautiful guest is Eucharidium concinnum, 

 one of those things so exquisite in color and delicate in 

 form that cultivators do not try to improve it. It is one of 

 the last of the annuals to flower, and in June it is to be 

 seen in pink masses under the Buckeyes, and with the 

 Maiden-hair on the shadier slopes. A little earlier, and in 

 the drier parts of similar places, were showy masses of 

 Collinsia bicolor. 



Three Calochorti are to be seen in the canon. On the 

 warm southerly slopes at the mouth of the canon C. ve- 

 nustus grows sparingly in grassy openings in a soil which 

 by midsummer is baked like a brick. Its white (lowers, 

 beautifully oculated, are borne in June. A very few are 

 creamy or buff in color. It is the prevailing Mariposa 

 Tulip of Ukiah valley. It is in the Black Oak woods and 

 under the Manzanitas that C. pulchellus must be searched 

 for. In rich soils its single glossy leaf is often a foot long. 

 Later on in May and June the graceful scape follows, and 

 the globular flowers, delicately fringed with silk}' hairs, are 

 among California's prettiest. More retiring in habit, and 

 more modest in flower, is C Maweannus. Its home is up 

 among the shadiest nooks in tin' Black Oak wood. Its 

 leaf resembles that of C. pulchellus, but the exquisitely 

 delicate (lower is an open cup lined with long silky hairs. 

 The children hereabout have named them Pussy-ears, not 

 inappropriately. 



