38 THE FLORIST AND 



For the Florist and Horticultural Journal. 



DARLINGTONIA CALIFORNICA. 



It has been hinted to me, in a very modest manner, by a talented lady 

 contributor to your journal, that a few short remarks from me, on the local- 

 ity and habit of the Darlingtonia calif ornica, (Torrey) new California Pitcher 

 plant, might prove acceptable to the readers of the Florist. But I find, 

 after reading the full and very lucid description of this very 'interesting plant, 

 by my friend Dr. Torrey, that little is left for me to say in reference to it, 

 save to relate the circumstance of its detection; to which I may add a few 

 observations on some interesting trees and shrubs of Oregon and California, 

 which came under my notice, and of which little is known by the lovers of 

 beautiful trees on this side of the Rocky Mountains. 



In the autumn of 1841, a party belonging to the United States South Sea 

 Exploring Expedition, of which I was a member, started from the Columbia 

 river to cross overland to San Francisco ; and as the country through which 

 we had to pass was rugged, and in many places mountainous, and the route 

 which the party pursued, led among Indians, hostile to the white man, this, 

 together with the fact that the time to perform the journey was limited, 

 caused us to make long marches — sometimes as much as forty miles per day. 

 The season being far advanced, most of the plants of the country were out 

 of flower, which made the excursion less interesting to the botanist than it 

 otherwise would have been a few months earlier. 



On the fourth of October, while crossing the Shaste Mountains, about 41° 

 N. lat., and a few miles south-by-west of Mt. Shaste, and only a short dis- 

 tance from Destruction River, (a tributary of the Sacramento ;) the country 

 here was dry, and the valleys and tops of the minor ranges of mountains 

 covered by a forest of large trees, composed principally of Pinus Lamberti- 

 ana. In this forest there were numerous openings ; I had here fallen a con- 

 siderable distance behind my companions, and in one of these openings, on 

 the margin of a small stream that I could step across, I detected the Dar- 

 lingtonia, (then out of flower,) growing in bunches, in company with a species 

 of Epipactis and a Parnassia ; there was no swamp or morass, but only a 

 few narrow wet creeks bordering the streams, which I am inclined to believe 

 takes its rise in low swamp land at the base of the mount. 



The appearance of this Sarracenioid, pitcher-plant, in the distance, re- 

 minded me much of some species of Iris, particularly the I. pseud-acorus. 

 The notes in my possession, taken on the spot at the time, are brief; and the 

 specimens of the plant being in the hands of Dr. Torrey, I therefore take the 

 liberty of transcribing for the benefit of your readers, his very excellent de- 



