FIELD-DAYS IN CALIFORNIA 



pines and cedars. The pines along the Cafion's 

 edge (there are two taller species, "yellow " and 

 "black," in the slightly lower valleys of the 

 plateau) are small, with extremely short leaves, — 

 so short that very young trees look confusingly 

 like firs, — two to the sheath, and prickly cones 

 hardly bigger than peas. Pinons, the stranger 

 was afterward bidden to call them, which he pro- 

 ceeded to do, with lively satisfaction. It is always 

 a pleasure to find a name out of a book begin- 

 ning to mean something. The cedars, many of 

 them ancient-looking (a thousand years old, some 

 of them might well enough be), and loaded with 

 mistletoe, bear a general resemblance to the red 

 cedar of the East (though their berries are much 

 larger), and are remarkable, even at first glance, 

 for branching literally at the ground, making one 

 feel as if the earth must have been filled in about 

 them after they were grown. 



Here and there was an abundance of a shrub, 

 or small tree, which, the photographer had in- 

 formed the newcomer, was known locally as the 

 Mexican quinine bush, still showing its last sea- 

 son's straw-colored flowers, — many stamens and 

 six prodigiously long, feathered styles in a spread- 

 ing, bell-shaped, five-lobed corolla. The foliage 

 was much like a cedar's in appearance, and when 

 crushed yielded a resiny, colorless substance and 

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