THE AMERICAN BOTANIST. 
53 
Stiff breeze this is whirled over and over, even after it has 
come to earth and losing a seed here and there soon plants the 
crop. 
MOUNTAIN MISERY. 
BY CHARLES FRANCIS SAUNDERS. 
rjY this alliterative title is sometimes called a pretty little 
^ everg-reen shrub of the middle Sierra region of Cali- 
fornia, where in sunlit, coniforous forests it often covers 
immense areas with a dense carpet of dull green, which looks at 
a short distance like a sown turf. The branching, wiry stems 
are about a foot high and are clothed with an abundance of 
finely dissected leaves, amid which throughout the summer 
an occasional solitary white flower is borne, resembling a 
strawberry blossom. Like the strawberry, indeed, the plant 
is a member of the rose family, and is botanically known as 
Chamaehatia foliolosa — a name familiar to readers of John 
Muir's works, who speaks of it sympathetically in ''Our Na- 
tional Parks." 
The leaves are so fern-like in appearance that it is said 
that an old lady of one of the foothill towns, who added to her 
income by selling pressed flowers to tourists, used to palm off 
bits of foliage on the uninitiated as fronds of a peculiar fern of 
the region. 
"But why Mountain Misery?" you ask. Upon pluck- 
ing a few leaves of the plant, you become conscious of an in- 
definable, pungent odor, somewhat of a cross between that of 
tobacco and fresh paint. Then you notice that your hands 
are discolored and begummed with a sticky resin which dots the 
leaves, and, if you do not observe it then, you will later. Your 
clothes, wherever they have come in contact with the plant, are 
liberally smeared with the same substance; so that if they are 
of a delicate fabric, it will be a nice matter to restore them to 
their original estate. "So", you think, "misery enough", and 
deem the plant well named. 
