WILD GARDENS OF THE YOSEMITE PARK 157 



allowing the twenty or thirty five-lobed bell- 

 shaped flowers to open and look straight out 

 from the fleshy axis. It is said to grow up 

 through the snow ; on the contrary it always 

 waits until the ground is warm, though with 

 other early flowers it is occasionally buried or 

 half buried for a day or two by spring storms. 

 The entire plant — flowers, bracts, stem, scales, 

 and roots — is red. But notwithstanding its 

 glowing color and beautiful flowers, it is singu- 

 larly unsympathetic and cold. Everybody ad- 

 mires it as a wonderful curiosity, but nobody 

 loves it. Without fragrance, rooted in decaying 

 vegetable matter, it stands beneath the pines and 

 firs lonely, silent, and about as rigid as a grave- 

 yard monument. 



Down in the main canons adjoining the azalea 

 and rose gardens there are fine beds of herba- 

 ceous plants, — tall mints and sunflowers, iris, 

 Oenothera, brodisea, and bright beds of erythraea 

 on the ferny meadows. Bolandera, sedum, and 

 airy, feathery, purple-flowered heuchera adorn 

 mossy nooks near falls, the shading trees wreathed 

 and festooned with wild grapevines and clematis ; 

 while lightly shaded flats are covered with gilia 

 and eunanus of many species, hosackia, arnica, 

 chaenactis, gayophytum, gnaphalium, monardella, 

 etc. 



Thousands of the most interesting gardens in 

 the Park are never seen, for they are small and 



