BOTANY. 107 
sides are frequently covered with them, and their red, blue, or 
yellow petals hide every thing else. Each month has its flow- 
ers: in March the grass of a valley may be hidden under red, 
in April under blue, and in May under yellow blossoms. There 
is such a variety that within an hour I have counted twenty 
species on a spot not more than twenty feet square. This was 
on dry, sandy soil, in Sonoma valley, in the month of May. 
None of the flowers are large, brilliant in color, or rich in 
sweet, strong perfume. 
The tulé is a reed which covers all the large tracts of swamp 
lands in the state. It has no leaf, but a plain, round stalk, va- 
rying from half an inch to an inch and a half at the butt, and 
tapering gradually to a point. It is usually not more than 
eight or ten feet high, but at the Tulare Lake it grows to 
fifteen or twenty feet. 
The grass and herbage begin to grow and clothe the land- 
scape in green after the first heavy rains of the rainy season. 
These rains may come in December, January, or February; 
and until they do come, the earth, in the districts not covered 
with timber, is brown. The grass continues green until June, 
when it begins to dry up and turn yellow and brown, which 
colors then predominate in the landscape until the rains come 
again. The death of the grass, except at high elevations, is 
caused not by the cold but by the drought; and in those months 
when the prairies of Indiana and Illinois are covered with 
snow, the valleys of California are dressed in the brilliant 
green of young grass. 
The mistletoe grows abundantly on the oak-trees of Califor- 
nia. The Spanish moss, which hangs in long lace-like gray 
beards from the branches, also serves to give beauty to the 
groves in the valleys. 
Nore.—Most of my information about the botany of the state has been 
derived from the reports of Dr. J. 8. Newberry, in the United States Pacific 
Railroad Survey, and from the conversation of Dr. A, Kellogg, Dr. H. Behr, 
and Mr. H. G. Bloomer, of San Francisco. 
