Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 30.djvu/562

542 he would not stand it; you can't get along without a dog." "I was not cross to the dog; but, confound him, he would not even let me swear at the sheep!"

When spring approaches we are reminded that even here, in the rocky hills and desert-lands of sage-brush, cactus, and alkali-springs, Nature is not sparing of her gifts, and these arid hills and plains show forth many floral beauties.

Among them is one that claims universal admiration when seen in flower, belonging to the primrose family, said to be named for its discoverer, Lewis the explorer, Lewisnia, growing wild in the sand and gravel of the rocky ledges of the foot-hills, mostly on the southern side. The leaves are coarse, radical, and from four to eight inches long. The root stretches several feet, fleshy and red, with two or three side or lateral roots. It may be that this plant is the same as that mentioned in a report to the United States Agricultural Department among the "Food-products of the North American Indians in California," called in the report Lewesia rediviva, and by the Indians "spatulum." The root of this plant is described as large and spindle-shaped, its inner part white and farinaceous; and the report continues: "It abounds in concentrated nutriment, a single ounce of the dried article being sufficient for a meal. It is worthy of cultivation." Perhaps, being cultivated, it might take rank with the potato. It has rare floral beauty; the buds spring from the crown of the root, the leaves of the plant spreading around flat on the ground; the buds grow nearly upright, from one to two inches in length. If you watch them about sundown, you can see the buds slowly expand, and soon open into a pure white flower, four- and five-petaled, rose-scented, containing long stamens and pistils covered with pollen. The flower expanding near nightfall, such a pure and delicate white, changes gradually next morning, as the sun comes up, to a light rose-pink, afterward becoming a deep pink; and the old blossom then closes, lies down, and falls off. Although these plants are found in the poorest of dry soil and rocky ledges, where they would seem to get no moisture, or very little, yet a lady friend who successfully transplanted them, says: "We planted them in the garden, bottom-land, along a creek, and there they grew larger and more beautiful, flowering freely until frost. On one plant of two years' growth I counted twenty or more buds." They have many seeds; seed-pod four-celled, about an inch long, fleshy at base and tapering up.

The absence of wild fruit or nut-bearing trees and shrubs is a noticeable drawback, but perhaps is not at all remarkable, the lands requiring irrigation for fruit or produce.

As far as the writer's observation extends, there is but one good fruit growing here: that is the red raspberry, in the mountains; large, hardy, and more finely flavored than the choice raspberries in the States.