
BRODIAEA 
(Brodiaea capitata) 
Children and country folk know this lovely common flower 
by the unpoetic name of «wild onion,’’ because it springs from 
an edible bulb shaped not unlike that vegetable. It may be found 
in bloom from February to May amid the wayside grasses and 
on the sunny hillsides—its clustered blossoms at the summit of 
slender, swaying stalks, varying from deep blue to delicate lilac 
or even white. 
This is one of the California flowers that can be counted 
upon to preserve their freshness when mailed «back east.?’ If 
well developed buds—not open flowers—are selected and 
packed at once in damp wrapping, they will stand a trip of five 
or six days in the mail bags and expand upon being set in a vase 
of water at the end of the journey. 
CREAM-CUPS 
(Platystemon Californicus) 
This wild flower’s blushing buds dotted with tiny bristling 
hairs and drooping shyly on their slender stalks, are so much like 
buds of the poppies of an old-fashioned garden, that one is not 
surprised to learn of the plant’s relationship with the poppy tribe. 
The creamy cups of bloom begin to appear in March 
amid the grasses of the fields and waysides where they are often 
as thick as buttercups in an Eastern meadow. 
~The clustered, necklace-like seedpods which succeed the 
flowers are an interesting feature of the plant’s life-history. 
MONKEY FLOWER 
(Mimulus luteus) 
The Monkey Flowers are among the most characteristic of 
California wildings and exist in numerous species and in many 
colors. The yellow variety, here depicted, is abundant in 
Southern California, where it loves to take up its abode in cafions 
and by the margin of streams, 
The gaping corolla, suggesting to some active imagination 
the grinning countenance of an ape, is responsible for the popular 
name. The loveliness of the flower is deserving of a more 
poetic one. 



