When in flower, this is one of the most attractive of all our Ceanothi. It often covers great mountain-sides with its white bloom as with drifted snow. The trip to the Yosemite is often diversified by this beautiful spectacle, which comes as an exhilarating surprise.
Among the mountaineers this shrub is highly valued as forage for their cattle, which they turn upon it after the lowland pastures have dried up.
The young twigs and leaves have the spicy fragrance of the black birch of the Eastern States. The foliage is deciduous, and of rather a pale though bright green. The bark of the root of this shrub is becoming celebrated as a remedy for various disorders, such as malaria, catarrh, and liver trouble.
COMMON WHITE LUPINE.
Lupinus densiflorus, Benth. Pea Family.
Stems.—Stout; simple below; parted in the middle into numerous widespreading branches; two feet high; succulent; sparsely villous. Flowers.—In long-peduncled racemes; six to ten inches long; with usually five or six dense whorls. Bracts bristle-like, from a broad base. Calyx.—Upper lip scarious; deeply cleft; lower long, toothed. Corolla.—White or rose-color; seven lines or so long; the standard dark dotted. Pod.—Two-seeded. Hab.—Widespread; Sacramento Valley southward.
In the days when we went fishing in the brook with a pin for minnows, a company of these pretty white lupines in a field represented to our childish fancy so many graceful dames in flounced skirts dancing in a sylvan ballroom.
MEADOW-SWEET.
Spiræa discolor, Pursh. Rose Family.
Shrubs two to six feet high. Leaves.—Alternate; short-petioled; an inch or two long; oval or ovate; crenately lobed above; the lobes often toothed; silky pubescent beneath. Flowers.—White; two lines across; in feathery panicles several inches long. Calyx.—Five-parted; petaloid. Petals.—Five; equaling the sepals. Stamens.—About twenty. Pistils.—Five; distinct; one-celled. Hab.—Coast Ranges, mostly from Monterey County northward.