The plant grows so abundantly in the fields of the southern seasides as to be a dreadful pest to the farmer, and it is very disagreeable to walk through, as it yields up the water of its crystals very readily, and this is said to be of an alkaline quality, which is ruinous to shoe-leather.
This ice-plant grows plentifully in the chalky regions of France, and has there been recommended for use as a food, to be prepared like spinach. It also grows in the Canary Islands.
_Radical leaves._--Very numerous; two or three feet long; about two lines broad; gracefully flexile; serrulate. _Scape._--Two to five feet high; with scattered leaves; bearing at top a dense raceme a foot or two long. _Perianth segments._--Six; spreading rotately; four or five lines long; white. _Stamens._--Six. _Ovary._--Three-celled. Styles three; filiform. _Hab._--Coast Ranges to British Columbia; also in the Northern Sierras.
Often upon high ridges we notice the large clumps of certain plants with long, slender, grasslike leaves, which ray out in every direction like a fountain, and resemble a small pampas-grass before it flowers. We naturally wonder what the plants are, but it may be many years before our curiosity is satisfied. Suddenly some spring we find them sending up tall blossom-shafts, crowned with great airy plumes of pure-white flowers, fully worthy of our long and patient waiting. After putting forth this supreme effort of a lifetime, and maturing its seed, the plant dies.
In the north, where it is sometimes very abundant, and occupies extensive meadows, it is known as "sour-grass." The name "squaw-grass" is also applied there, because the leaves, which are long, wiry, and tough, are used by the Indians in the weaving of some of their finest baskets. Baskets made from them are particularly pliable and durable.
_Orthocarpus versicolor_, Greene. Figwort Family.
Slender; seldom branching or more than six inches high. Herbage slightly reddish. _Leaves._--Cleft into filiform divisions at the apex. _Flowers._--Pure white, fading pinkish; very fragrant. Lower lip of the corolla with three very large sacs. Folds of the throat densely bearded. (See _Orthocarpus_.) _Hab._--San Francisco and Marin County.