The Steers Head Flozver. 



269 



The northwesterly slopes were still covered with exten- 

 sive snowfields, but about boulders the snow had melted, 

 leaving a sort of broad crevasse-like space a foot deep 

 between the snowfield and a boulder. In the bottom of 

 such openings the Steer's Head raises its nodding flowers 

 on slender stalks in such a way as to leave no doubt of 

 the entire appropriateness of the comm.on name. The 

 two lov.-er spreading petals curve out on each side from 

 the flower and answer excellently well for a steer's horns. 

 The tAvo upper petals are narrowed to a snout-like process, 

 and are notched on each side toward the base (that is at 

 the end nearest the summit of the flower-stalk) so as to 

 reveal the dark ovary beneath, thus furnishing "eyes" for 

 the fairy cattle. While above the "eyes" is a sepal making 

 a good enough forelock (Fig. 2). 



This flower being perfectly bi-symmetrical, the illusion 

 is equally satisfactory from both sides. Of the many 

 hundred kinds of flowers which furnish fancied resem- 

 blances I believe that there are not many which are so 

 little strained as this. The name, Steer's Head, was born 

 in the mountaineer's brain on the instant seeing of this 

 flower; it was never concocted after prolonged thought 

 or deliberation. 



On a sultry day when weary cattle congregate grega- 

 riously in some favored spot one may recall the apologetic 

 lazy movement, suddenly relaxing into inertia, with which 

 they resent the presence of an intruder who forces them 

 to move even a few feet. On the high slopes of Macomb 

 Ridge the fairy Steer's Heads in the crevasses, by reason 

 of their posture, recalled suggestively the attitude of 

 drowsy cattle half-abashed but not alarmed by an unwel- 

 come stranger. It is a plant of curious structure, well 

 worth searching for, and the quest of it will give zest and 

 pleasure to mountain climbs in the neighborhood of Tower 

 Peak or of Mt. Conness, mountain heights which lie near 

 some of its favored habitats. 



Berkeley, California, April, 1912. 



