The American Botanist 
Vol. XI. JOLIET, ILL., SEPTEMBER, 1906. No. 1 
UNDER SIERRA PINES. 
BY CHARLES FRANCIS SAUNDERS. 
TO one accustomed to the dense woodland growth of 
the Eastern States, the forests of the Sierra Ne- 
vada are a great surprise in their openness to the sun. 
These hues are written in the midst of a Sierra forest, the 
individual trees of which, in many cases 200 feet or more 
in height — often rise 75 or 100 feet before the leaf bearing 
limbs put forth. This fact, combined with the generous 
spacing between the trees themselves, gives to these prime- 
val woods a sunny cheerfulness quite in contrast with the 
grave twilight which we naturally associate with coniferous 
forests. 
This cheerful openness, largely free from undergrowth 
and flooded with sunlight day after day, through the entire 
summer, ensures an abundant crop of wild bloom, which is 
the joy of all flower lovers who pass through these mount- 
ains. Mariposa tulips, exquisitively marked like butterflies' 
wings; fritillary with greenish flower bells mottled with 
chocolate ; brodiaeas in lavender, yellow, purple and gentian 
blue; chamaebatia with solitary strawberry-like blossoms 
amid fragrant exquisitely dissected foliage spread close 
as a rug beneath the giant pines ; brilliant madias and golden 
eriophyllums, pansy-faced monkey flowers and gilias in as 
many hues as Harlequin — all these and many other are new 
to our Eastern eyes. 
But many others are here, too, which a knowledge of 
the Eastern flora enables us to recognize at sight, though 
usually of difi:'erent species from the familiar faces of home. 
Lupines of various colors, some as fragrant as the wistaria 
