The great coniferous forests of our higher mountains afford homes for many interesting members of the Heath family. A trip to the Sierras in August will yield many a prize to the flower-lover. Pyrolas, with waxen clusters, vie with Pipsissiwas; the weird looking Pterospora rears its uncanny, gummy stems, clothed with small, yellowish bells, while an occasional glimpse of a blood-red spike betrays the most wonderful of them all—the snow-plant.

Of the Pyrolas we made the acquaintance of three in this region. These pretty plants are called "shinleaf," because the leaves of some of the species were used by the English peasantry as plasters which they applied to bruises or sores. Pyrola picta, with its rich leathery, white-veined leaves and clusters of whitish, waxen flowers, was quite plentiful and always a delight to meet. Pyrola dentata, Smith, we often found growing with it. This has spatulate, wavy-margined leaves; which are pale and not veined with white, and its scapes are more slender. It never was so attractive or vigorous a plant as the other.

A ramble in the woods one day brought us to the brink of a charming stream, whose pure, ice-cold waters babbled along most invitingly. Following its course, we found ourselves in a delightfully cool, moist thicket, where, nestling in the deep shade, we found the beautiful, rich, glossy leaves of Pyrola rotundifolia, var. bracteata, Gray. The leaves are roundish, of a beautiful, bright chrome green, highly polished, and the delicate flowers are rose-pink. This is called "Indian lettuce" and "canker lettuce," and a tincture of the fresh plant is used in medicine for the same purposes as chimaphila. P. aphylla, Smith, is easily distinguished by the absence of leaves. It has flesh-colored stems, and its flowers are sometimes of the same color, and sometimes white. This is found in the Coast Ranges.

[WHITE-VEINED SHINLEAF—Pyrola picta.]

PEARLY EVERLASTING FLOWER.

Anaphalis Margaritacea, Benth. Composite Family.

Stems.—One to three feet high; leafy up to the flowers. Leaves.—Alternate; sessile; lanceolate or linear-lanceolate; two to four inches long; white-woolly, at length becoming green above. Heads.—Of filiform disk-flowers only. Involucre.—Of many rows of pearly white, pointed scales, not longer than the flowers, resembling ray-flowers. Hab.—Widely distributed over the northern parts of America and Asia.

Our wild everlasting flowers are very difficult of determination, and are comprised under at least three genera, Gnaphalium, Anaphalis, and Antennaria. The word Anaphalis is from the same root as the word Gnaphalium, and the species have quite the aspect of Gnaphalium.

The flowers of the pearly everlasting have a peculiarly pure pearly look before they are entirely open, and their sharp-pointed little scales give them a prim, set look, like very regular, tiny white roses. There is a hint of green in them, but they are never of the dirty yellowish-white of the cudweed, nor have they the slippery-elm-like fragrance of the latter. When fully expanded, the centers are brown. The leaves, which at length become a dark, shining green, make a fine contrast with the permanently white-woolly stems. The flower-clusters are loosely compound.