604 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 200. 



where the native plants can be grown and protected in their 

 natural habitat, with congenial climate and surroundings. One 

 of these stations, started two years ago, is called the " Linnsea," 

 and is situated high up at Bourg-Saint-Pierre, on the Grand 

 Saint Bernard route. 



The free use of trees for decorative purposes, apparently, 

 prevails as much in Switzerland as with us. During my stay in 

 Geneva the city was gayly decorated in honor of a congress of 

 athletic societies, and, besides the usual display of flags, bunt- 

 ing, etc., immense quantities of greenery were used, being 

 brought from the surrounding country and neighboring moun- 

 tains. Both branches and young trees of the native Balsam 

 Fir were used in great quantities, also some Norway Spruce 

 and Swiss Pine, while the native Ivy [Hedera Helix) and the 

 Box were the chief materials used in making up festoons and 

 other trimmings. 



Arnold Arboretum . /. tr. jack. 



The Weeds of California. — VI. 



HTHE Convolvulacece supply only two obnoxious members, 

 ■*■ one native, C. Calif ornicus, and the European C. Arvensis, 

 These are not hurtful as " bindweeds," but simply on account 

 of obstinately holding their ground against culture plants by 

 dint of their long root-stocks that penetrate the ground to 

 great depths, and which it is impossible to kill otherwise than 

 by exhausting them, keeping the persistently reappearing tufts 

 of foliage constantly cut during at least one season. The 

 native species, which is erect without creeping stems, is espe- 

 cially hard to subdue in the "black prairie" or adobe soils of 

 the Coast ranges, and its pretty white flowers adorn many an 

 abandoned orchard in the Bay country. The " convolvulus " 

 is the most dreaded of the perennial weeds. 



Cuscuta trifolii is naturally a much-dreaded pest in a country 

 in which Alfalfa is so important ; and it annually makes 

 its appearance here and there, but is promptly checked by the 

 simple expedient of close-pasturing for at least one season. 

 Alfalfa-seed is usually required by the purchaser to be 

 warranted " free from Dodder." 



Of the Solanacece, Solanum nigrum appears as a weed in 

 waste places or fields without being troublesome. The 

 Datura Stramonium has been introduced, but makes little 

 headway, and is rare, while the native D. meteloides maintains 

 itself obstinately against cultivation in the great valley and in 

 south California, taking the place of the "Jamestown weed." 

 Its range is nearly co-extensive with that of one of the native 

 tobaccos — Nicotiana attenuata — whose viscous stems and 

 foliage combine with an unpleasant odor to render it objec- 

 tionable in the fields it invades. 



Of the ScrophulariacecB, the only weedy accession from the 

 outside is an occasional occurrence of Veronica peregrina. 

 Scrophularia Califomica is locally somewhat troublesome ; 

 Mimulus lyratus is an obstinate but hardly noxious guest on 

 the black lands of the Bay region and elsewhere. The most 

 troublesome member of the family is Orthocarpus purpures- 

 cens, which locally not only disputes the ground with grain in 

 the Coast ranges, but must be strongly suspected of adding 

 injury by semi-parasitism, etiolating the remnant of grain- 

 stalks. The same must be suspected as regards several others 

 of the same genus that are frequent among the grain, and in 

 pastures in California, as well as of O. campestris of Oregon 

 and Washington. 



The cosmopolitan Brunella, though occurring in the 

 mountain-pastures of northern California, obtains no foot- 

 hold south of the Oregon line. Stachys bullata is locally 

 troublesome in the Coast-range valleys ; the intensely 

 scented Trichostema (Camphor-weed) maintains itself in the 

 cultivated fields of the warmer parts of the state as on its 

 original ground, defying heat and drought, and playing the 

 part of a " Tar-weed " very successfully. But no other Labiates 

 can be counted as weeds. 



The Verbenacece are represented only by V. officinalis, which, 

 in the irrigated lands of the great valley and lower foot-hills, 

 attains a vigorous development. 



Of the Plantaginea, P. major and. P. mollis give some trouble 

 in lawns and irrigated grounds, but cannot be considered 

 generally troublesome. It is quite otherwise with P. lanceo- 

 lata, which in company with Setaria glauca is the most for- 

 midable enemy of irrigated grounds and pastures in the foot- 

 hills of the Sierra, and more or less in the adjacent portions 

 of the Sacramento Valley. The Plantago frequently shares 

 the ground evenly with the grain, and in company with the 

 Setaria forms steadily increasing patches in the Alfalfa fields, 

 until the whole ground is taken. Such ground is difficult to 

 reclaim from these weeds so long as field-crops are grown. 



Urtica holoserica, the tall, stout native Nettle, makes itself 

 disagreeably conspicuous in low grounds ; while Urtica urens 

 is a common invader of cultivated grounds all over the state. 



Of the Euphorbiacea, it is chiefly the decumbent tribe that 

 represents the Euphorbias proper in the fields, notably E. Ser- 

 pyllifolia of the east, and E. albomarginata and E. ocellata as 

 natives. All these are popularly credited with curative 

 properties against rattlesnake bites. E. Lathyris has locally 

 escaped from cultivation, and is periodically brought forward 

 as a much-needed remedy for the troublesome " gopher " 

 Thotnomys umbrinus, which, in sandy lands particularly, it 

 really seems to abate materially, probably through the poison- 

 ous properties of its pleasant-tasting seeds. 



The most universally diffused weedy member of the order, 

 however, is the Eretnocarpus setigerus, a broad-leaved, hir- 

 sute, spreading annual, commonly known under the name of 

 Turkey weed. While it prefers light sandy soils, and is, there- 

 fore, more especially at home in the San Joaquin Valley, it is 

 also found throughout the Sacramento Valley and within the 

 Coast ranges, from Mendocino County on the north to San 

 Diego on the south, and on the valley and mesa lands of the 

 interior ; it does not even omit the Mojave Desert, but there 

 changes its dichotomous spreading habit to an erect one, and 

 appears in large patches densely crowded with almost un- 

 branched stems, as much as three feet in height ; suggesting 

 the use of its strong and abundant fibre for industrial pur- 

 poses. The extremely irritating nature of the dust arising 

 from the dry stems when handled would alone probably pre- 

 vent such use. The extreme resistance of the plant to drought 

 enables it to survive almost any other annual vegetation ; but 

 the ease with which it is killed, even by a kick at the root- 

 crown, renders it much less objectionable than most other 

 " summer weeds." 



Sisyrinchium bellum, the handsome blue " star grass," is apt 

 to overrun moist but overstocked pastures, and is sometimes 

 not easily subdued. 



Oddly enough, one of the "California Lilies," the pale blue 

 Calochortus invenustus, is a veritable weed in some of 

 the warmer parts of the state, where it persists in grain-fields, 

 though without material damage. A Zygadenus is charged 

 with poisoning lambs and their hungry mothers in early spring 

 in northern California and Oregon. 



Of weedy Grasses, the troublesome Chess, Bromus seca- 

 linus, is found here and there, as an importation with seed 

 grain or packing straw ; but it utterly fails to gain a foothold 

 as a weed. Its place is, however, very successfully occupied 

 by the corresponding plant of Europe, the Darnel (Lolium te- 

 mulentum), which not only holds in the cereal fields a place 

 similar to that held by the Chess in the east, but is in addition 

 charged with the same sin of transforming itself at will, in un- 

 favorable seasons, into the very grain of which it has usurped 

 the place — wheat, barley, oats or whatever the crop may hap- 

 pen to be. The echoes of warm discussions on this issue, 

 both in journals and in agricultural clubs, have hardly yet sub- 

 sided, and there remains many a staunch believer in the 

 changeling supposed to perform such surprising feats. Not 

 the least amusing feature of this discussion was that Darwin 

 was repeatedly cited as supporting and proving the occurrence 

 of such transformations. 



Bromus mollis finds the climate much more congenial than 

 does B. secalinus, and, with B. sterilis, may be classed as a 

 weed grass, common on roadsides and in neglected fields. 

 But it has attained a wide importance as a more or less wel- 

 come successor of the native grasses on natural pasture- 

 grounds, so completely adapted to the Coast-range climates 

 that it may be found waving on the slopes as thickly massed 

 as though sown on purpose. Locally it has been thus used, 

 and is likely to become more popular since it has been found 

 to be effectual in driving out the most dangerous enemy 

 among the grasses of both pastures and fields — namely, the 

 Hordeum murinum, variously known as Squirrel-grass, Fox- 

 tail and Barley-grass. This undesirable immigrant, while 

 affording early green pasture for a short time, becomes a fear- 

 ful nuisance so soon as its long-awned ears are developed. 

 The bristly awns, provided like the paleae with retrorse serra- 

 tion, accompany the three-flowered spikelets to the end ; and 

 the latter, being sharp-pointed at the base, adhere to and pene- 

 trate almost anything in the way of woolen or cotton mate- 

 rials from the sheep's fleece to ladies' dresses ; they work up 

 the nostrils of cattle and the laborers' sleeves to the neck, and 

 generally make themselves obnoxious to a degree not easily 

 surpassed by any plant outside of the tropics. Although an 

 annual, its extirpation has proved extremely difficult ; and the 

 advent of a natural enemy in the Soft Brome-grass is there- 

 fore most welcome. 



