re made, and the crushed waste is
returned to the grove and ploughed in about the trees as a fertilizer.

FLOWERS AND PLANTS

"When California was wild," says John Muir, "it was one sweet
bee-garden throughout its entire length, and from the snowy Sierra to
the ocean."

There were so many yellow poppies in this great unfenced garden, that
the Spanish sailing along the coast called it the "Land of Fire" from
the golden flowers covering the hills. Near Pasadena, in Southern
California, these poppy fields may still be seen glowing so brightly
in the sun that you do not wonder at the name "Cape Las Flores," or
Flower Cape, which the sailors also gave to this part of the country.

[Illustration: IN A MISSION GARDEN.]

[Illustration: A CHRISTMAS GARDEN.]

The poppy is our best-known wild flower, planted by Mother Nature
before white men ever visited these shores. When the Spanish
settled here they called the poppy _copa de oro_, or cup of gold.
The gold hunters spoke of it as the California gold flower, and sent
the pressed poppies home in their letters. But its correct name is
the Eschscholtzia (esh-sholt'si-a), from the name of a German
botanist and naturalist, who studied the plant and wrote about it
almost a hundred years ago.

From February to May the poppies are most plentiful, but a few may be
found almost every month in the year. Have you noticed the finely cut
green leaves, and the pointed green nightcap that covers each bud till
the morning sunshine coaxes off the cap and unfolds the four satiny
golden petals? The flowers love the sun and close up on dark, cloudy
days, or if brought into the house. But put them in a sunny window the
next morning, and you may watch the cups of gold open to the light.

Some of the poppies are a deep orange-color, while others are a pale
yellow. And as you walk through the fields you may pick a hundred at
each step, so thick do the plants grow. The wild bees find a yellow
dust called pollen or "bee-bread" in the poppy, the same golden powder
that rubs off on your nose, when you put it too close to this cup of
gold or to lilies.

Then in this "unfenced garden" were also the baby blue-eyes, whose
pretty pale-blue blossoms come early in the spring, each one with a
drop of honey at the foot of its honey path, as the black lines on its
petals are called.

Can you name twenty kinds of wild flowers? Around San Francisco and
the bay counties you will count, after the poppy