122 East and West 
An evergreen huckleberry flourishes in 
rocky places at slight elevations, a vigorous 
shrub, and from thence upward to the sum- 
mit of the range, ceanothus, greasewood, sages, 
and manzanita predominate. The black sage 
and the white first open their flowers in 
December and bloom through a long spring. 
These “‘sages,”’ in reality audibertias, are the 
bee plants of Southern California and as 
characteristic of the hills as sagebrush of the 
desert. ‘‘Sagebrush’’ again is an artemisia; 
true sages or salvias are much less abundant. 
Of the audibertias, the humming-bird sage 
is perhaps the most striking, an herbaceous 
plant bearing large crimson flowers in whirls, 
surrounded by bronze-coloured bracts, with 
sage-green crinkly leaves. One and all— 
salvias, artemisias, and audibertias—have the 
odour of sage, so that sometimes the air is 
redolent. 
The most characteristic shrub of the Coast 
Range—of California indeed—is the man- 
zanita. Rarely attaining the dimensions of a 
tree, its branches, tortuous, twisted, and gro- 
tesque as those of an ancient live-oak, are 
clothed with a smooth bark of a deep ma- 
hogany tone, as richly coloured as any bark 
you may see. Like all heaths, its berries 
