MOUNTAIN BIRCH. WHITE TEA-TREE. SOAP-BUSH.
Ceanothus integerrimus, Hook. and Arn. Buckthorn Family.
Shrubs or small trees; five to twelve feet high; with cylindrical, usually warty, branches. Leaves.—Alternate; on slender petioles two to six lines long; ovate to ovate-oblong; one to three inches long; entire or rarely slightly glandular-serrulate; thin. Flowers.—White; sometimes blue; in a thyrse three to seven inches long, one to four thick. Fruit.—Not crested. (See Ceanothus.) Hab.—Mountains from Los Angeles to the Columbia River.
When in flower, this is one of the most attractive of all our Ceanothi. It often covers great mountain-sides with its white bloom as with drifted snow. The trip to the Yosemite is often diversified by this beautiful spectacle, which comes as an exhilarating surprise.
Among the mountaineers this shrub is highly valued as forage for their cattle, which they turn upon it after the lowland pastures have dried up.
The young twigs and leaves have the spicy fragrance of the black birch of the Eastern States. The foliage is deciduous, and of rather a pale though bright green. The bark of the root of this shrub is becoming celebrated as a remedy for various disorders, such as malaria, catarrh, and liver trouble.