Slender, with many erect branches; stems and bracts usually dark-reddish; soft pubescent. Corolla.—Deep sulphur-yellow; the slender falcate upper lip dark purple; the tube very slender, but the sacs of the lower lip large and deep, their folds hairy within. (See Orthocarpus.) Hab.—Monterey County and northward; very common.
There are many species of Orthocarpus, and they are more numerous in Middle and Northern California and in the Sierras, few of them reaching the south. They are very difficult of determination, and are not well understood by botanists yet. A common name for the plants of this genus is "owl's clover."
BRASS BUTTONS.
Cotula coronopifolia, L. Composite Family.
Stems.—Six inches to a foot long. Leaves.—Alternate; lanceolate or oblong-linear; pinnatifid or entire. Flower-heads.—Solitary; yellow; three to six lines across; without rays. Involucre.—Of two ranks of nearly equal, scarious-margined scales. Hab.—Common everywhere.
These little weeds are natives of the Southern Hemisphere, but are now common everywhere. They affect wet places, and their little flowers, like brass buttons, are very familiar objects along our roadsides. The foliage when crushed gives out a curious odor, between lemon-verbena and camphor.
DEER-WEED. WILD BROOM.
Hosackia glabra, Torr. Pea Family.
Woody at base; two to eight feet high; erect or decumbent. Stems.—Many; slender; branching; reed-like. Leaves.—Sparse; short-petioled; mostly trifoliolate. Leaflets three to six lines long; oblong to linear-oblong; nearly glabrous. Flowers.—In numerous small axillary umbels; yellow; four lines long. Calyx.—Less than three lines long; five-toothed. Corolla.—Papilionaceous. Stamens.—Nine united and one free. Pod.—Elongated; exserted. Seeds two. (See Leguminosæ.) Hab.—Common throughout the State.
This graceful, willowy plant, whose slender branches are closely set with small golden-yellow flowers, in which there is often a hint of red, is as ornamental as any of the small-flowered foreign Genestas, or brooms, we grow in our gardens; but because it is so very abundant throughout our borders, we have become blind to its merits. It is especially beautiful and symmetrical in the south, where the low, bushy plants often spread over several feet of ground; and on the mesas of Coronado, the plants growing not far removed from one another, lend to the natural scene the aspect of a garden. There it is in full flower in April; but in the north the blossoms are usually later in arriving, and it is often June before they show themselves; then making whole hill-slopes dull-yellow among the chaparral.