Stem.—Six to twenty inches high; leafy; bearing solitary or rarely two or three large, slender-peduncled heads. Leaves.—Obovate to oblong; entire or with several sharp teeth; thin. Flower-heads.—Of yellow disk-flowers, and usually pure white ray-flowers. Disk.—Half an inch wide. Rays.—Fifty to seventy; narrowly linear; six lines or more long. Hab.—The Sierras; also the Rocky Mountains of Colorado.
"High on the crest of the blossoming grasses, Bending and swaying, with face toward the sky, Stirred by the lightest west wind as it passes, Hosts of the silver-white daisy-stars lie."
No fairer sight could be imagined than a mountain meadow filled with these large, pure-white, feathery daisies.
[BACCHARIS—Baccharis Douglasii.]
![[BACCHARIS—Baccharis Douglasii.]](#3624944100741987669_f035.png.id-5847288111598589584.wrap-0.html.html){kind=link}
CALIFORNIAN FALSE HELLEBORE.
Veratrum Californicum, Durand. Lily Family.
Stems.—Stout; three to seven feet high. Leaves.—Oval; narrowing to lanceolate; sessile; sheathing; four to twelve inches long. Flowers.—Greenish-white in a large panicle, with usually ascending branches. Stamens and pistils in the same flowers, or in separate ones. Pedicels.—About two lines long. Perianth segments.—Six; spreading; oblanceolate; their bases thickened and green or brownish; upper margins sometimes minutely toothed; three to eight lines long. Stamens.—Six. Anthers confluently one-celled. Ovary.—Three-celled. Styles three, divergent. Hab.—The Middle Sierras and Mendocino County northward to the Columbia; also eastward.
The false hellebore may be found in midsummer in the mountains. It grows along watercourses, and often covers rich, moist meadows, where its stems rise from three to seven feet, with their coarsely ribbed, boat-shaped leaves and large panicles of greenish-white flowers. When at its best it is a rather fine, showy thing, but its leaves are often perforated by some insect, and present a ragged, untidy appearance.
The mountaineers commonly call this plant "skunk cabbage," a deplorable misnomer, because it is in no sense merited; and, moreover, we have a plant to which the title more rightfully belongs. The root and young shoots are a violent poison, and are fatal to animals which are unfortunate enough to crop them.