garden. I never dreamed, either, that Sutton's Clarkias and Godetias 
harked back to California for their origin. It seems as if this State's 
wild flower seeds furnished most of the annuals that revolutionized 
English gardening arrangements nearly a century ago. Indeed one 
never sees American wild flowers cultivated in England without blush- 
ing to remember how little we have made of them in our own plant- 
ing schemes. Douglas' own name is linked with the coreopsis Douglasii 
and the Douglas Fir, or Spruce, pseudofsuga Douglasii. He called the 
charming Gilias after the Spanish collector, Stephen Gil. The Clarkia 
is named for that Virginia gentleman, William Clark. The golden-yel- 
low Fremontia blazes out the fame of the pathfinder, General Fremont. 
The Layias are in memory of G. Tradescant Lay of the Beechy expedi- 
tion. We must not weary you or the younger audience with too much 
history. We want biography and romance to make them desire the 
facts. Children would be thrilled with the tale of Douglas' travels; of 
how he discovered the seeds of the Sugar Pine in an Indian's tobacco 
pouch. His search for the tree and how he ran away from the Indians 
afterward. Many similar stories can be told of his experience, but not 
that of his death. His was too horrible a fate for so devoted a plant 
lover. 
Through Indian customs, told and illustrated with flowers, children 
will learn to know the Syringa, philadelphus Gordonianus, not for its 
fragrant flowers only, but for the young shoots from which the 
Indians fashioned their arrows. The uses Indians made of seed and 
bulb and bark are endless — the soap-yielding plants are an example. 
The Amole is a regular plant "surprise package." This wonderful 
bulb sends up a stem four or five feet high, topped by white, purple- 
veined flowers which do not open until afternoon; the broad basal 
leaves of the plant help to identify it; the Indians used the bulbs' 
coarse covering for brushes; they made a sort of glue from the boiled 
juice; the roasted pulp served for poultices in sickness; and with the 
narcotic property in the fresh bulbs, they used to stupefy fish when 
they were too lazy to hook or spear them; best of all, this "package" 
is rich in saponin and makes a lather even in cold water. I kept a 
small boy busy one whole morning digging up a variety of Pig-weed, 
which is a garden pest here, and the secret of his industry was that the 
root chenopodium calif ornicum, rubbed and pounded harshly, makes 
a foamy suds, which he was collecting for bathroom use! 
A small boy, who would be mildly interested in the fact that the 
Brodieas are named for an old Scotch flower-lover, James Brodie, will 
be highly interested to find that the Indians ate the Httle bulbs as 
wild onions; the larger varieties they called their "Highland Pota- 
toes." The manner in which these bulbs were gathered and cooked in 
a deep pit will appeal to the primitive instincts of the normal child. 
But even teUing interesting stories will not discourage them from 
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