Before studying the flowers of this valley, and their sky and all of the furniture and sounds and adornments of their home, one can scarce believe that their vast assemblies are permanent, but rather that, actuated by some plant purpose, they had convened from every plain, and mountain, and meadow of their kingdom, and that the different coloring of patches, acres, and miles marked the bounds of the various tribe and family encampments. And now just stop and see what I gathered from a square yard opposite the Merced. I have no books and cannot give specific names:—
| Orders | Open flowers | Species |
|---|---|---|
| Compositæ | 132,125 | 2 yellow, 3305 heads |
| Leguminosæ | 2620 | 2 purple and white |
| Scrophulariaceæ | 169 | 1 purple |
| Umbellaceæ | 620 | 1 yellow |
| Geraniaceæ | 22 | 1 purple |
| Rubiaceæ | 40 | 1 white |
| 85 | Natural order unknown | |
| 60 | Plants unflowered | |
| Polemoniaceæ | 407 | 2 purple |
| Gramineæ | 29,830 | 3; stems about 700; spikelets 10,700 |
| Musci | 10,000,000 | 2 purples, Dicranum, Tunar |
| Total of open flowers, 165,912 | ||
| Total of flowers in bud, 100,000 | ||
| Total of withered, 40,000 | ||
| Total of natural orders, 9–11 | ||
| Total of species, 16–17 | ||
The yellow of these Compositæ is extremely deep and rich and bossy, as though the sun had filled their petals with a portion of his very self. It exceeds the purple of all the others in superficial quantity forty or fifty times their whole amount, but to an observer who first looks downward and then takes a more distant view, the yellow gradually fades and purple predominates because nearly all of the purple flowers are higher. In depth the purple stratum is about ten or twelve inches, the yellow seven or eight, and second purple of mosses one.
I’m sorry my page is done. I have not told anything. I thought of you, Mrs. Carr, when I was in the glorious Yosemite and of the prophecy of “the Priests” that you would see it and worship there with your Doctor and Priest and I. It is by far the grandest of all of the special temples of Nature I was ever permitted to enter. It must be the sanctum sanctorum of the Sierras, and I trust that you will all be led to it.
Remember me to the Doctor. I hope he has the pleasure of sowing in good and honest hearts the glorious truth of science to which he has devoted his life. Give my love to all your boys and my little Butler.
Adieu.
J. Muir.
Address:
Hopeton, Merced Co., Cala.
At a sheep ranch between the
Tuolumne and Stanislaus rivers,