HUMMING-BIRD'S SAGE.

Audibertia grandiflora, Benth. Mint Family.

Coarse plants, with woolly stems; one to three feet high. Leaves.—Opposite; wrinkly; white-woolly beneath; crenate; the lower three to eight inches long; hastate-lanceolate; on margined petioles; upper sessile; pointed. Inflorescence.—Over a foot long, with many large, widely separated whorls of crimson flowers. Corollas.—Eighteen lines long. Stamens and style much exserted. Flower-bracts.—Ovate; sharp-pointed; often crimson-tinged. (Otherwise as A. stachyoides.) Hab.—The Coast Ranges, from San Mateo southward.

This, the largest-flowered of all our Audibertias, becomes especially conspicuous by April and May in southern woodlands, where its large, dark flower-clusters may be seen in little companies amid the shadows. The leaves and bracts are quite viscid, and have a rather rank, unpleasant odor; but the flowers are not without a certain comeliness. The long, crimson trumpets are arranged in whorls about the stems, projecting from many densely crowded bracts. Tier after tier of these interrupted whorls, sometimes as many as nine, mount the stems. The bracts and stems are usually of a rich bronze, which harmonizes finely with the color of the flowers. The joint in the filament is quite conspicuous in this species.

"Humming-birds that dart in the sun like green and golden arrows"

seem to be the sole beneficiaries of the abundant nectar in these deep tubes.

[CLIMBING PENTSTEMOM—Pentstemon cordifolius.]

CALIFORNIAN SWEET-SCENTED SHRUB.

WESTERN SPICE-BUSH.

Calycanthus occidentalis, Hook. and Arn. Sweet Shrub Family.

Shrubs.—Six to twelve feet high. Leaves.—Ovate to oblong-lanceolate; three to six inches long; dark green; roughish. Flowers.—Wine-colored (sometimes white); solitary; two inches or so across. Sepals, petals, and stamens indefinite, passing into each other; all coalescent below into the cuplike calyx-tube, on whose inner surface are borne the numerous carpels. Petals.—Linear-spatulate, usually tawny-tipped. Carpels becoming akenes. Hab.—From the lower Sacramento River northward.

This is one of our most beautiful shrubs. Upon the banks of streams, or often upon a shaded hillside where some little rill trickles out from a hidden source, it spreads its branches and lifts its canopy of ample leaves. There is a pleasant fragrance about the whole shrub, and the leaves, when crushed, are agreeably bitter. From April to November the charming flowers, like small wine-colored chrysanthemums, are produced; and these are followed by the prettily veined, urn-shaped seed-vessels, which remain upon the bushes until after the next season's flowers appear, by which time they are almost black. It is from these cuplike seed-vessels that the genus takes its name, which is derived from two Greek words, meaning flower and cup.

[CALIFORNIAN SWEET-SCENTED SHRUB—Calycanthus occidentalis.]