GOLDEN YARROW.
Eriophyllum confertiflorum, Gray. Composite Family.
White-woolly plants, at length smooth. Stems.—A foot or two high. Leaves.—Cuneate in outline; divided into three to seven narrow linear divisions. Flowers.—Golden yellow; in densely crowded flat-topped clusters. Heads.—Small; of disk- and ray-flowers. Rays.—Four or five; broadly oval or roundish. Involucre.—Oval; of about five thin bracts; two lines long. Hab.—From San Francisco to the Sierras, and southward to San Diego.
[LITTLE ALPINE LILY—Lilium parvum.]
In early summer many a dry, rocky hill-slope is ablaze with the brilliant flowers of the golden yarrow. The brown-mottled butterfly may often be seen hovering over it, or delicately poising upon its golden table, fanning his wings.
E. cæspitosum, Dougl., is a very handsome species with solitary golden flower-heads an inch or so across. Its leaves are broader and not so finely divided, and some of the upper ones are linear and entire. This is found throughout California.