120 East and West 
curate to say that the first rain is the 
beginning of spring, though the season I am 
describing is midwinter by the calendar. 
As with the Adirondacks, one charm of the 
Santa Inez hill-country certainly lies in its 
shrubs, and these in California and the West 
generally are known collectively as chaparral, 
though the term properly applies, according 
to Rothrock, to scrub oak only. Appar- 
ently the first flower to appear hereabouts 
is the wild currant, whose clusters of pink 
blossoms and light green foliage are ex- 
tremely delicate and vernal. White ceano- 
thus is early in bloom and is followed in 
December by the blue species known as 
California lilac. A good part of the chaparral 
on the lower slopes of the range is com- 
posed of this blue ceanothus, growing to a 
height of fifteen and even twenty feet, and 
covered as by a garment with its dense- 
flowered racemes which in places lend a 
billowy and smoke-like appearance to a 
mountain spur or shoulder. Two goose- 
berries are now in bloom, both charming, and 
one—the fuschia-flowered—surely among the 
handsomest shrubs in North America. It is 
evergreen and from its spreading branches, 
which droop gracefully, depend in long 
