Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 87.djvu/33

Rh of small white flowers, the chaparral pea, mountain mahogany, bush poppy and yerba santa, all lend a charm that compensates for the long periods of gray monotony.

The preponderance of shrubs is a striking characteristic of California. One familiar with the shrubs of the eastern states will discover many surprises among the California varieties. To be sure, he will find many familiar genera, such as roses, currants and snowberries, but many strangers as well, such as the shrubby poppies, phloxes, mallows, monkey-flower, and even senecio. His solitary bear berry, uva-ursi, is here represented by about twenty species and New Jersey tea by over

thirty, many of which are very attractive in bloom and appropriately named California lilac.

In southern California the wild buckwheat, the laurel-leaved sumac and the black and white sage are prominent along the lower edge of the chaparral. The buckwheat and sages are bee plants par excellence, and produce tons of clear white honey. The Spanish-bayonet, a member of the yucca family, is widely distributed through the chaparral. Most of the year it is merely a tuft of dagger-like leaves, but in May and June each tuft sends up a straight flower-stalk eight to twelve feet high, bearing a huge pillar-like mass of creamy white flowers that may be seen for several miles. On canyon floors one will occasionally meet the matilija poppy. This is California's most gorgeous flower. It grows in round clumps eight to ten feet high, bearing a profusion of delicate