day to the flower-lover new to the California mountains. No 
coddled exotic of our gardens is more appealing than some of 
these wildings sown along the mountains by the liberal hand of 
Nature. Indeed many of them are familiar denizens of 
European gardens, where they began to be introduced well over 
three-quarters of a century ago. As I write there comes into 
my mind such compelling beauties as the great scarlet Larkspur 
rising at times above the head of a man and for half its length 
a mass of brilliant flowers; "Whipple's Yucca of even greater 
proportions but flowering in white; the exquisite Parry Lily, 
which haunts the stream borders of the middle heights but is 
yearly becoming rarer, they say, through indiscriminate pick- 
ing; Gilias and Monkey-flowers, Lupines and Mariposa Tulips 
of varied colors ; and to mention one more of the crowding host, 
that charming little tree which glorifies the hills of its choice 
in May and June with sheeted gold and whose name com- 
memorates one of our West's most noted historical characters 
— Fremontia Calif ornica. 
Last May my wife and I spent a couple of weeks in these 
mountains in a section that had been swept a year or two before 
by one of the severest fires that the Sierra had ever known, 
converting nearly a hundred square miles of mountain-side and 
canon that had been one vast greenery of chaparral, Pine and 
Oak, into a blackened desolation of ashes and charcoal. So 
utter was the devastation that it seemed as though a desert must 
be the result forever, yet at the time of our visit every species 
of shrub that had composed the chaparral — Chamise, "Wild Lilac, 
Mountain -Mahogany, Sumac, California Holly, Manzanita — was 
thriftily growing from sturdy root-shoots, so that the charred 
trunks and branches were already half hid, and myriads of 
herbaceous wild flowers spread the healing of their grace and 
beauty over every scar of burning. In places the mountain- 
sides were fairly dyed with the blue and purple of Lupines, the 
yellow of Dicentra, the purple of Penstemons and Phacelia, the 
orange of Poppies and the pink of certain Gilias. "We could 
not help being struck by this reparative work of Nature, who, 
though she blasts, leaves always the seeds of a continuing life, 
and contrasting it with the vandalism of man who, careless of 
who comes after, wantonly destroys root and branch. The 
Angeles National Forest is one of Southern California's popular 
playgrounds. It is estimated by the local Forest Service that 
600,000 people enter it every year for recreation purposes. Into 
one resort alone, accessible by automobile, a count one season 
some time ago, showed that over one road there were 47,500 
arrivals as compared with 30,000 into the Yosemite; and there 
were two other roads of ingress not counted. There is therefore 
an immense field for awakening an interest among these 
enthusiastic mountain-goers to the end that the wild plant life 
263 
