[Illustration CALIFORNIAN AZALEA--_Rhododendron occidentale_.]
_Vancouveria parviflora_, Greene. Barberry Family.
_Stems._--One or two feet high. _Leaves._--All radical; twice to thrice ternately compound. _Leaflets._--One to two inches broad; rich shining green; persisting; undulate and membrane-margined. _Flowers._--Twenty-five to fifty, in loose panicles; small; with six to nine sepal-like bracts. Parts in sixes all in front of one another. _Sepals._--Petaloid; two lines long. _Petals._--White to lavender. _Stamens._--Erect; closely appressed to the pistil. _Ovary._--One-celled. Style stoutish. _Hab._--Coast Ranges of Central California.
There is no more exquisite plant in our coast woods than the American barrenwort. Its delicate threadlike stems, which are yet strong and wiry, hold up its spreading evergreen leaves, every leaflet in its own place. There is a likeness in these leaves to the fronds of our Californian maidenhair, and one could easily imagine the maidenhair amplified, strengthened, and polished into this form. The leaflets are also somewhat ivy-like in form.
In June its delicate, airy panicles of small white blossoms appear. These are especially interesting as belonging to the Barberry family, where all the floral organs stand in front of one another, and the anthers open by cunningly contrived little uplifting valves. These plants are said to grow upon bushy hillsides, in masses sometimes several feet across. But I have never seen it with other than an exclusive and rather solitary habit, growing in shaded forests. We have one or two other species.
_Amelanchier alnifolia_, Nutt. Rose Family.
Deciduous shrubs, three to eight feet high. _Leaves._--Alternate; petioled; from rounded to oblong-ovate; serrate usually only toward the apex; six to eighteen lines long. _Flowers._--White, in short racemes. _Calyx-tube._--Campanulate; limb five-parted. _Petals._--Five; oblong; six lines or so long. _Stamens._--Twenty; short. _Ovary._--Three- to five-celled. Styles three to five. _Fruit._--Small; berry-like; dark purple. _Hab._--Throughout the State and northward; also eastward to the Western States.
[Illustration AMERICANBARRENWORT--_Vancouveria parviflora_.]
The service-berry seems to be at home throughout our borders, but it reaches its greatest perfection north of us, on the rich bottom-lands of the Columbia River. In spring the bushes are beautiful, when snowily laden with masses of ragged white flowers; and from June to September they are no less welcome, when abundantly hung with the black berries, which usually have a bloom upon them. These berries are an important article of food among our Western Indians, who make annual pilgrimages to the regions of their growth, gathering and drying large quantities for winter use. The drying they effect by crushing them to a paste, which they spread upon bark or stones in the sun. It is said that many a party of explorers, lost in the woods, has been kept alive by this little fruit.