No. 543] NOTES AND LITERATURE 



181 



Range which farther south joins the outer Coast Range. The 

 rainfall in these valleys shut off from the ocean by the inter- 

 vening mountains is relatively small, and the floors of the 

 valleys are usually open plains with only a scattered growth of 

 spreading trees, mostly Oaks. In the great central valley much 

 of the land is too dry to support any tree growth and there are 

 extensive grassy plains recalling the prairies of the Middle West. 



The open valleys and the foothills are the home of an extra- 

 ordinary variety of beautiful flowers, winch in spring spread a 

 gorgeous carpet over the landscape. These flowers are largely 

 annuals winch start into growth at the first autumn rains, and 

 flower in the early spring, ripening their seeds and dying with 

 the oncoming of the summer drought. There are also many 

 bulbous plants, some of great beauty like the exquisite Mariposa 

 lilies and Brodiasas. While some of these valley plants like the 

 California Buttercup and species of Clover are allied to Eastern 

 types, the great majority are western or belong to western and 

 southwestern genera. Representative genera are Lupinus. Or- 

 thocarpus, Eschscholtzia, Nemophila. Cilia, Platystemon, Co- 

 detia, Clarkia, and an extraordinary variety of showy Com- 

 posite. 



A characteristic feature of the hillsides and dry mountain 

 slopes is the "Chaparral," a dense and often impenetrable 

 growth of shrubs of many kinds, scrub Oaks. Chinquapin. 

 Poison-oak (Rhus), Buckeye, Ceanothus, Ribes, Ileteromeles. 

 Adenostoma. Most of these are evergreen, but some like the 

 Buckeye and Poison-oak, are deciduous. 



To the east of the great valley lies the Sierra Nevada, rising to 

 an altitude of nearly fifteen thousand feet with a flora of great 



and with scattered Oaks and Digger Pines /'. Siihnn<imi> give 

 way at higher altitudes to perhaps the flnesl cointerotis tores s 

 in the world. At an altitude of about four to six thousand feet 

 is the great forest belt where grow the scattered groves of the 

 Giant Sequoia, associated with hardly less imposing Sugar I'm-. 

 Yellow Pines, Firs and Incense Cedar. As an umh-rgmut 1 

 there are found Dogwoods, Oaks, Aspens, and many beautiful 

 flowering shrubs like the Azaleas, Ceanothus, Philadelphus. The 



