HUMMING-BIRD'S TRUMPET. CALIFORNIA FUCHSIA.
Zauschneria Californica, Presl. Evening-Primrose Family.
Woody plants, more or less villous. Stems.—Much branched; ascending or decumbent; one to three feet long. Leaves.—Mostly alternate; sessile; narrowly lanceolate to ovate; six to eighteen lines long. Flowers.—Bright scarlet; in a loose spike; funnel-form; twenty lines long. Calyx.—Scarlet; four-cleft. Petals.—Four; obcordate; borne on the calyx-tube. Stamens.—Eight. Filaments and style more or less exserted. Ovary.—Four-celled; inferior. Stigma four-lobed. Hab.—From Plumas County to Mexico; and the Rocky Mountains east of the Great Basin.
In late summer and through the autumn, the brilliant blossoms of the California Fuchsia brighten the sombre tones of our dry, open hill-slopes. Its aspect is one of gay insouciance, which would drive away melancholy despite oneself, and though other plants have been put to rout, one by one, by the sun's fierce glare, nothing daunted, it puts on its brightest hues, like a true apostle of cheerfulness. It has been cultivated for some time, and is highly prized in Eastern gardens, where it has earned for itself the pretty title of "humming-bird's trumpet." It is not confined to our limits, but extends southward into Mexico, and eastward to Wyoming. We have seen it flourishing in the Sierras, where it is particularly beautiful.
It is called "balsamea" by the Spanish-Californians, who use a wash of it as a remedy for cuts and bruises.
It varies greatly in the size and hairiness of its leaves, in the form of its flowers, which are broadly or narrowly funnel-form, and in the exsertion of the stamens and style. The var. microphylla has a woolly pubescence, linear leaves often very small, three or four lines long, and other small leaves crowded in their axils. This is found in the south.
[CALIFORNIA FUCHSIA—Zauschneria Californica.]
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There is no glory in star or blossom Till looked upon by a loving eye; There is no fragrance in April breezes Till breathed with joy as they wander by.
—William Cullen Bryant.