SErTEMBKR 21, 1892.] 



Garden and Forest. 



447 



ton for bringing- this benutii'ul place to general attention, and 

 for the opportunity to praise its beauty, and to say tliat the one 

 visit to Pine Bank remains among the fairest of tliose pictures 

 which every traveler preserves in a special little inner mental 

 gallery, apart from thousands of others which, despite greater 

 magnificence or more striking associations, are nevertheless 

 not his best and dearest. If I tried to count over a dozen 

 scenes which had most poetically spoken to my imagination 

 as well as delighted my eyes, one among them would surely 

 be the picture oE Pine Bank on a hot summer afternoon when 

 the sunlight slantetl through the Pines, touching to green-gold 

 the grass which looked as though no foot heavier than a fairy 

 princess's had trodden it for years, and turning the pretty sheet 

 of water beyond the screen of whispering Pines into a stain- 

 less azure mirror. Good days have, indeed, dawned for the 

 people of our large towns when such spots as this are secured 

 for their perpetual pleasuring. 



New York. 



J\f. G. Van Rensselaer. 



Native Shrubs of California. — VIII. 



OF the Ceanothus genus, or California Lilacs, as they are 

 not inaptly called, there is so great a variety on all our 

 hills and mountains that one scarcely knows with which to 

 begin the account. They are a large part of that almost im- 

 penetrably dense brushwood, called "chaparral," which 

 covers middle elevations of the Coast-range, forming a dis- 

 tinct belt between the herbaceous vegetation of the foot-hills 

 and the forest-growth on the highest ridges and summits. 

 Another series'of species, distinct from those of the Coast- 

 range, inhabit the Sierra Nevada, and are more commonly 

 inte'i-spersed among the forests, or along the borders, min- 

 gling with other woody growths. 



Among the Coast-range species, C. thyrsiflorus holds a con- 

 spicuous^place in point of ornamental qualities. Though often 

 flowering profusely as a shrub six or eight feet high, under 

 favorable conditions it matures into a shapely tree twenty-five 

 feet or more in height. In habit it is compact as the Lilac, 

 with green-barked branches and twigs, and a deep, glossy 

 three-Vibbed foliage. It is strictly evergreen and flowers more 

 or less freely from March to May, the color of the large, dense 

 clusters being a perfect blue. In any collection of ornamental 

 shrubs it should hold a welcome place. Twenty years ago it 

 was no rarity upon the lawns and shrubberies in the northern 

 parts of San Francisco, where it had been spared when other 

 and less attractive native growths had been cleared away for 

 the establishment of homes. This species is not found away 

 from the seaboard, nor has it an extensive range along the 

 coast. It is, I believe, hardy in England, where it has been 

 much admired, though in that climate it is not well at home, 

 if we may judge from Lindley's figure in the Botanical Register 

 (vol. XXX., t. 38), in which it appears with a comparatively pale 

 foliage and lax clusters of light blue flowers, altogether of in- 

 ferior beauty compared with the shrub on its native hills. 



On the flanks of Mount Tamalpais, and in many like situa- 

 tions among the Coast-range hills, grows C. sorediatus, very 

 unlike C. thyrsifiorus in habit, and displaying a greater pro- 

 fusion of bloom in very small clusters. Although its branches 

 and branchlets are short, stiff, and even somewhat spinescent, 

 they have a curving tendency which gives to the bush, in a mass, 

 a rounded, rather than angular outline, and the whole surface 

 of a well-grown specimen in full flower appears like a billowy 

 mass of skv-blue, the flower-clusters, though small and short- 

 stalked, decking every twig. Many years ago some small 

 plants were transferred from the adjacent hills to the university 

 grounds at Berkeley, where they have ever since been sub- 

 jected to ah annual clipping by the workmen on the grounds, 

 and reduced to solid hemispherical or conical outlines. These 

 plants have suffered litde by this unkindly treatment, and each 

 spring, for weeks together, they are like leafless cones of blue, 

 the flowers quite concealing the foliage. This hardy native is 

 one of the best shrubs for edging purposes, whether desired 

 for usefulness or ornamentation. Like C. thyrsiflorus, it is 

 evergreen, the foliage small and of rounded outline. 



Every one who has journeyed to any part of the Sierra 

 Nevada in early summer has admired C. integerrimus. This 

 is a large shrub of loose and open growth, with thin sea-green 

 foliage and very conspicuous long-stalked clusters of flowers, 

 prevailingly white, though occasionally pale blue. It has not 

 the merit of perennial verdure, the foliage being mainly de- 

 ciduous, and for this reason, although it is perhaps the most 

 beautiful of all Ceanothi when in full bloom, it is not particu- 

 larly attractive at other seasons. The Coast-range counterpart 

 of this species is the somewhat rare C. Andersonii, with more 

 abundant foliage than C. integerrimus. The leaves are smaller 



and the panicles of while flowers at least equally conspicuous 

 and more profuse. It has been found only in the neighbor- 

 hood of Santa Cruz, but the botany of the mountains south- 

 ward is yet scarcely explored, andC. Andersonii is in all proba- 

 bility established there. In the Santa Barbara region of the 

 Coast-range is C. spinosus, another exceedingly handsome 

 species of the larger and arborescent class. This has glossy 

 evergreen leaves of small size, and ample clusters of light or 

 deep blue flowers. It takes its specific name from the fact 

 that many of the branches end in sharp, leafless, spur-like, or, 

 rather, thorn-like points. Across the channel from Santa Bar- 

 bara, on the large island of Sanla Cruz and one or two neigh- 

 boring islets, is found a peculiar Ceanothus, extremely unlike 

 any mainland species, and the largest member of the genus. 

 It was discovered by the writer in 1886, and named C. arboreus, 

 in reference to its great size, clean tree-like trunk and well- 

 rounded head. Its broad and ample foliage is white under- 

 neath, and the flower-clusters white or pale blue. In 

 Professor Sargent's Silva of North America this is figured 

 as a variety of C. velutinus, to which it seems to me to 

 be as little related as to any species of the genus. It 

 has one close ally, however, in a Mexican species, C. azureus. 

 This has a more elongated and relatively narrow foliage, but 

 the same texture, pubescence and whiteness beneath. It is an 

 interesting fact that all the discoverable connections of the 

 novel and interesting flora of the islands off Santa Barbara are 

 with Mexico rather than with California. Upon the mainland 

 mountains behind Santa Barbara is another Ceanothus of ar- 

 borescent growth, in habit like a Wild Plum-tree. In late Feb- 

 ruary its head is a mass of white bloom, so great is the pro- 

 fusion of small clusters of flowers on every branch and twig. 

 This is C. megacarpus, a sort so rare as to have fjeen but sel- 

 dom seen even by a botanist. It may, perhaps, not be infre- 

 quent along the higher summitsof mountains in the unexplored 

 tiistricts of southern California. 



Among shrubby species of Ceanothus is the surpassingly 

 pretty C. foliosus, with very small crisped or almost curled 

 foliage of the darkest green, which is half-hidden at flowering- 

 time under the many smaU, roundish stalked clusters of in- 

 digo-blue. It is only a foot or two in height, but with countless 

 widespread branches, so that it forms a dense low thicket, 

 almost completely covering the mountain-slopes in its own 

 peculiar region, the foot-hills of Mt. St. Helena of the inner 

 Coast-range. At the lowest elevations, just bordering the Napa 

 valley, in the same general district, we have a somewhat 

 closely related, but large and graceful, blue-flowered sort in C. 

 Parryi, the original specimens of which were obtained by Dr. 

 Parry from the shrubbery in front of a vineyardist's residence, 

 whose good taste had left to them their foothold on the soil 

 when other bushes had been cleared away. It is quite com- 

 mon in that region. 



It is not possible, in a short account, to make special men- 

 tion of more than one in ten of the entire list of Californian 

 Ceanothi, though almost all are beautiful. But I am unwilling 

 to conclude without speaking of two of the humbler sorts 

 which adorn each its own place in the woods of the Sierra 

 Nevada. In the heart of the great Pine district of the middle 

 Sierra, a slender, low, half-trailing species, C. diversifolius, is 

 singular in that it covers the ground throughout extensive 

 open forests with a perennial verdure ; and this is saying 

 much for any plant in the middle mountains, where the for- 

 ests in the main have no undergrowth which is not as short- 

 lived as the rainy season of the year, and when all through 

 the months of summer and autumn everything under the 

 Pines and Redwoods is as brown and sere as upon the open 

 plains below. C. diversifolius, wrongly called C. decumbens 

 in older books, is semi-herbaceous, with broad, thin, soft foli- 

 age, and in all but its trailing habit and blue flowers is much 

 like the familiar eastern species, C. Americanos. C. Ameri- 

 canus, by the way, as it now blooms in our university garden, 

 is apparently quite at home on this side of the continent, and no 

 white-flowered Californian species is prettier. In the Sierra, 

 at higher elevations than are reached by C. diversifolius, grows 

 a stout, prostrate, densely matted Ceanothus, with evergreen, 

 prickly foliage and rather inconspicuous blue flowers, form- 

 ing usually a close carpet under the trees. The school-chil- 

 dren in mountain districts call it Squaw Mats, or Mahala Mats, 

 the old Hebrew name Mahala having become for some reason 

 the popular designation of the feminine membership of the 

 Digger Indian tribe. The shrub is evergreen and very hardy, 

 as well as compact and low, and has been spoken of as 

 possibly useful for hiding the summer brown of unirrigated 

 knolls and slopes in parks and other places along the sea- 

 board. No experiments that I know of have been made. But, 

 as the home of this unique Ceanothus (C. prostratus) is on the 



