In early summer many a dry, rocky hill-slope is ablaze with the brilliant flowers of the golden yarrow. The brown-mottled butterfly may often be seen hovering over it, or delicately poising upon its golden table, fanning his wings.
E. cæspitosum, Dougl., is a very handsome species with solitary golden flower-heads an inch or so across. Its leaves are broader and not so finely divided, and some of the upper ones are linear and entire. This is found throughout California.
TARWEED. WILD COREOPSIS.
Madia elegans, Don. Composite Family.
Usually viscid throughout. Stems.—Three to six feet high. Leaves.—Crowded at the base of the stem; six to ten inches long; small above. Flower-heads.—Of both ray- and disk-flowers. Rays.—Twelve to fifteen; one inch long; three-lobed at the apex; yellow, sometimes with a dark-red base. Involucre.—With one series of scales, each clasping a ray. Hab.—Throughout California, and in Oregon and Nevada.
This is one of the most beautiful of all our tarweeds. Its golden, Coreopsis-like flowers open after sunset, and close at the first warmth of the morning rays.
All the Madias are used medicinally by old Spanish settlers.
Madia sativa, Molina, is one of our most troublesome species, because its viscid secretion is so very abundant. The plants are tall, but the flowers are inconspicuous, owing to the smallness or absence of the rays. It is native of Chile as well as of California.
An oil of excellent quality was made from its seeds in that country before the olive was so abundant.