TREE CEANOTHUS. 
45 
Ceanothus thyrsiflorus . Escholts, in Mem. Acad. St. Petersb. 
(1826.) Hooker, Flor. Bor. Amer. 1 . p. 125. Hooker and 
Arnott, in Botan. Beechey, p. 136. Torrey and Grey, 1. 
p. 266 . 
Though several species of this elegant genus in 
California, Oregon, and along the North-West Coast 
become considerable shrubs, this is the only one which 
can be classed amongst trees. It was somewhat abun- 
dant on dry gravelly hills in the vicinity of Monterey, 
where I arrived in the month of March, about the time 
that it was bursting into flower. My attention was 
called to it in the wood-pile, where considerable stems, 
at least as thick as a man’s leg, lay consigned to the 
ignoble but still important use of fire-wood. The wood 
appeared hard, tough, of a reddish colour, and it afforded 
a durable fuel. The branches were tortuous, spreading, 
and covered with a rough bark, the branchlets green and 
angular. Leaves nearly elliptic, the uppermost ovato- 
oblong, all glandularly serrulate; above smooth, beneath 
pubescent, particularly along the three strong nerves 
which traverse the leaf to the summit; the petioles very 
short; the upper branchlets terminating in thyrsoid 
panicles of deep blue and very elegant flowers, made up 
of numerous round, dense clusters, in small corymbs; 
the terminal mass oval, about three inches long, by 
about an inch in width; the clusters are subtended by 
ovate, acuminate, broad, villous and deciduous bractes. 
The calyx, petals and peduncles, are of a deep sky-blue; 
the segments of the calyx ovate; the petals, as usual, 
unguiculate and exserted as well as the stamens; the 
anthers are yellow. With the fruit I am wholly un- 
acquainted. 
As this is a hardy and very ornamental plant it well 
deserves cultivation. The flowers appear early in the 
