Having learned the name of a flower or plant, or having been formally introduced to it, as it were, our acquaintance has but just begun. Instead of being our end and aim, as it was with students of botany in the olden times, this is but the beginning. If this were our ultimate aim, all our pleasure would be at an end as soon as we had learned the names of all the plants within our reach. But the point of view has changed and broadened. The plant is now recognized as a living organism, not a dead, unchanging thing. It is vital; it grows; it is amenable to the great laws of the universe; and we see it daily complying with those laws, adapting itself to its surroundings—or perishing. It becomes a thing of absorbing interest when we trace the steps by which it has come to be what it is; when we note its relationship to other closely allied forms, and locate its place in the great world of plants.
A thoughtful observation of the structure of plants alone will fill the mind with amazement at the beauty of their minutest parts, the exquisite perfection of every organ. Then it is most interesting to notice the various kinds of places where the same plants grow; how they flourish in different soils and climates; how they parry the difficulties of new and unaccustomed surroundings, by some change of structure or habit to meet the altered conditions—as clothing themselves with wool, to prevent the undue escape of moisture, or twisting their leaves to a vertical position for the same purpose, or sending their roots deep into the earth to seek perennial sources of moisture, which enables them to flourish in our driest times. It is wonderful to note, too, the methods employed to secure the distribution of the seed—how it is sometimes imbedded in a delicious edible fruit, again furnished with hooks or bristles or springs, or provided with silken sails to waft it away upon the wings of the wind. Then the insects that visit plants. It is marvelous to note how plants spread their attractions in bright colors and perfumes and offerings of honey to bees, butterflies, and moths that can carry their pollen abroad, and how they even place hindrances in the way of such as are undesirable.
Studied in this way, botany is no longer the dry science it used to be, but becomes a most fascinating pursuit; and we know of no richer field in which to carry on the study of flowers than that afforded in California.
There has been a long-felt need of a popular work upon the wild flowers of California. Though celebrated throughout the world for their wealth and beauty, and though many of them have found their way across the waters and endeared themselves to plant lovers in many a foreign garden, the story of their home life has never yet been told.
It has been the delightful task of the author and the illustrator of the present work to seek them out in their native haunts—on seashore and mesa, in deep, cool cañon, on dry and open hill-slope, on mountain-top, in glacier meadow, by stream and lake, in marsh and woodland, and to listen to the ofttimes marvelous tales they have had to unfold. If they shall have succeeded in making better known these children of Mother Nature to her lovers and appreciators, and in arousing an interest in them among those who have hitherto found the technical difficulties of scientific botany insurmountable, they will feel amply rewarded for their labors.
The present work does not claim by any means to be a complete flora of the region treated. Our State is so new, and many parts of it have as yet been so imperfectly explored, that a comprehensive and exhaustive flora of it must be the work of a future time, and will doubtless be undertaken by some one when all the data have been procured. Such an attempt, however, were it possible, is without the scope of the present work.
California, with her wonderfully varied climate and topography, has a flora correspondingly rich and varied, probably not surpassed by any region of like area in the Northern Hemisphere. Thus the author finds herself confronted with an embarrassment of riches rather than with any lack of material; and it has often been exceedingly difficult to exclude some beautiful flower that seemed to have strong claims to representation. She therefore craves beforehand the indulgence of the reader, should he find some favorite missing.
In making a choice, she has been guided by the following general principles, and selected, first—the flowers most general in their distribution; second—those remarkable for their beauty of form or color, their interesting structure, history, or economic uses; third—those which are characteristically Californian. At the same time, those which are too insignificant in appearance to attract attention and those too difficult of determination by the non-botanist have been omitted. Flowering plants only have been included.
Many of our species extend northward into Oregon and Washington. Thus, while this work is called "The Wild Flowers of California," it will in a certain measure apply equally well to Oregon and Washington.