THISTLE-POPPY. CHICALOTE.
Argemone platyceras, Link and Otto. Poppy Family.
Stems.—One to two and one half feet high; hispid throughout, or armed with rigid bristles or prickles. Sap yellow. Leaves.—Thistle-like; three to six inches long. Flowers.—White; two to four inches in diameter. Sepals.—Three; spinosely beaked. Petals.—Four to six. Stamens.—Numerous. Filaments slender. Ovary.—Oblong; one-celled. Stigma three- or four-lobed. Capsule very prickly. Hab.—Dry hillsides from Central California southward.
The thistle-poppy would be considered in any other country a surpassingly beautiful flower, with its large diaphanous white petals and its thistly gray-green foliage, but in California it must yield precedence to the Matilija poppy. It resembles the latter very closely in its flower, and is often mistaken for it. It may be known by its yellow juice, its prickly foliage, and its very prickly capsules. I believe the flowers are somewhat more cup-shaped than those of Romneya.
It affects dry hill-slopes and valleys, often otherwise barren, where it grows luxuriantly, and sometimes attains a height of six feet, being in full bloom in May. There, where one is unprepared for such a sight, it becomes an object of startling beauty.
Malacothrix saxatilis, Torr. and Gray. Composite Family.
Stems.—Stout; a foot or two high; woody. Leaves.—Lanceolate to spatulate; one or two inches long; entire or pinnatifid; somewhat succulent. Flower-heads.—Terminating the paniculate branches; large; two inches or so across; white, changing to rose or lilac; of ray-flowers only. Involucre.—Campanulate or hemispherical; six lines high, with many imbricated scales passing downward into loose, awl-shaped bracts. Hab.—The Coast, from Santa Barbara southward.
This beautiful plant is a dweller upon the ocean cliffs, and may be seen in abundance from the car-windows just before the train reaches Santa Barbara going north. The stems are woody and very leafy, and the plants are usually covered all over the top with the showy flower-heads.
M. tenuifolia, Torr. and Gray, is a very tall, slender, sparsely leafy plant with fragile, airy white flowers. This is common along the dusty roadsides of the south in early summer.