WILD GARDENS OF THE YOSEMITE PARK 145 



canon cliffs, some of the tallest specimens have 

 well-defined trunks six inches to a foot or more 

 thick, and stand apart in orchard-like growths 

 which in bloomtime are among the finest gar- 

 den sights in the Park. The largest I ever saw 

 had a round, slightly fluted trunk nearly four 

 feet in diameter, which at a height of only eigh- 

 teen inches from the ground dissolved into a 

 wilderness of branches, rising and spreading to 

 a height and width of about twelve feet. In 

 spring every bush over all the mountains is cov- 

 ered with rosy flowers, in autumn with fruit. 

 The red pleasantly acid berries, about the size 

 of peas, F are like little apples, and the hungry 

 mountaineer is glad to eat them, though half 

 their bulk is made up of hard seeds. Indians, 

 bears, coyotes, foxes, birds, and other mountain 

 people live on them for months. 



Associated with manzanita there are six or 

 seven species of ceanothus, flowery, fragrant, 

 and altogether delightful shrubs, growing in 

 glorious abundance in the forests on sunny or 

 half-shaded ground, up to an elevation of about 

 nine thousand feet above the sea. In the su^ar- 

 pine woods the most beautiful species is C. 

 integerrimus, often called California lilac, or 

 deer brush. It is five or six feet high, smooth, 

 slender, willowy, with bright foliage and abund- 

 ance of blue flowers in close, showy panicles. 

 Two species, prostatus and procumbens, spread 



