EVERGREEN HUCKLEBERRY. 103 



ecstatic delight, silent and still, breathless, or tacit, ravished 



by unwonted beauty, soothed by sweet el ysian incense ; nearer 

 approached, it glows, living and sensitive in the loud and 

 reverent eye of love, ever gentle, tenderly fearful and reluct- 

 ant lest it mar the tiniest twig, yea, the chaste bloom of thy 

 youth. These shurbs are too nearly one and the same species, 

 "with variations" as the musicians play it. The leaves, 

 like the branches, opposite, egg-form, or only a little elon- 

 gated, attenuate-pointed, nearly entire or toothed on the 

 margin, two or three inches long, half as wide, and variously 

 nerved. White flowers, from an inch to an inch and a half 

 wide-spread, rather loosely clustered, and more or less leafy 

 at the base. They reflect a warmer and gayer light than the 

 Snowy Medlar (Amalanchier), and usually appear a little 

 later on, when lengthening days bring more abiding heat. 



The Purple Heathling (Bryanthus Breiveri). — Few me- 

 mentos from the alpine regions of California can equal the 

 charming flowers of the dwarf evergreen Heathlings of the 

 high Sierras. These tiny erect, hardy shrublets are about a 

 span to a foot or more high ; body usually about the size of 

 a quill, branching at or near the base; the upright branches 

 tipt with somewhat long plumey clusters of rose-purple 

 flowers — these terminal racemes two to four inches long, each 

 flower half an inch or more across, wheel or shallow saucer- 

 shaped, rather deeply five-lobed starry margin, filaments, 

 anthers, and long pistils alike purple-dyed, the eye-like 

 center, bright white to yellowish, and most cheery ; the gayest 

 of all the heathers; growing chiefly in peaty debris or black 

 rich humus of leafy compost, among rocks, or, at least, beside 

 the transient rillets of melting snow-drifts at from seven to 

 ten thousand feet and upwards on the summits of the Sierra 

 Nevada Mountains. The branches very far back are densely 

 clad with linear, obtuse heath-like leaves one half to an inch 

 long ; flower stems a little sticky-glandular, and the odor 

 fragrant as the Isles of Ceylon. Truly appreciated mid its 

 spring surroundings, and what can be more soul inspiring in 

 those serene heights where it blooms nearest akin to celestial 

 beauty; the charming law of unity in variety we see every- 

 where impressed on men and things, and this forever makes 

 the ceaseless music of the spheres above, below, abroad, 

 extending far * * * hence the myriad associations of 

 whose genesis we know very little, yet in returning affection 

 and with retrospective and introspective thought, we both feel 

 and do know, that they are oftimes so wedded with the order 

 of nature, and ourselves, the better part of it, they will come 

 back hand in hand fit companions of our past, if no others, 

 perchance, of the vast throng who also commune at her 

 altars. 



