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nia can boast of are dust and distance, a cluster of gold ferns 

 beside the trail are enough to make him conclude that there are 

 things in California that more than offset the unsightly. 



This should have been the State emblem rather than the 

 poppy, which conveys no special idea save ubiquity. California, 

 the State of romance, the land of paradoxes, of smiling vineyards 

 and burning deserts, gigantic forests and treeless plains, of 

 Pactolean streams which in one part wash the gold in the sluice 

 of the miner and in another water the orchards of fig and 

 orange of the husbandman, has here a graceful plant which only 

 seems to thrive where its roots below embrace the wealth to 

 which its ornament is an index; which seems to possess the gift 

 of Midas and use it for its own ornamentation. The land of gold 

 should have an emblem of gold. 



As found by me in Fresno county, the plant is confined to an 

 altitude of two thousand to four thousand feet, appearing as 

 soon as chaparral thickets are met and disappearing just be- 

 low the timberline is reached. It is practically confined to the 

 Pacific coast of the United States, though said to reappear in 

 Ecuador. It grows in the peculiar disintegrated granite rock, 

 so often the source of gold. It seldom is found in crevices with 

 little soil, and almost never in the shade. It loves the open sun, 

 the free mountain breezes and an undisputed domain. Its root- 

 stocks are creeping, but short, thickly covered with the remains 

 of dead stipes mixed with brown scales, and bearing at the tip 

 a cluster of ten to twenty fronds. These appear about the first 

 of March and chiefly develop after the rains have ceased : for 

 rains rob them of their riches. As found by me, the fronds are 

 mostly two and one-half inches each way, but further south 

 they are larger. At first the fruit is not seen ; but in May it rup- 

 tures the waxy covering and completely covers the back of the 

 frond. After this, most of the fronds roll and seem to wither 

 in the intense heat and drought, and the old ones die. The 

 fronds of the year, however, regain their wonted appearance at 

 the first rains of autumn. 



