e prevailing flower of the land. The rain may
continue at intervals. Daily the land grows greener, while the
shades of green, varied by the play of sunlight on the slopes
and rolling hills, increase in number and intensity. Here the
color is soft, and there bright; yonder it rolls in wavy
alternations, and yonder it reaches in an unbroken shade where
the plain sweeps broad and free. For many weeks green is the
only color, though cold nights may perhaps tinge it with a
rusty red. About the first of February a little starlike flower
of bluish pink begins to shine along the ground. This is the
bloom of the alfileria, and swiftly it spreads from the
southern slopes, where it begins, and runs from meadow to
hill-top. Soon after a cream-colored bell-flower begins to nod
from a tall, slender stalk; another of sky-blue soon opens
beside it; beneath these a little five-petaled flower of deep
pink tries to outshine the blossoms of the alfileria; and above
them soon stands the radiant shooting-star, with reflexed
petals of white, yellow, and pink shining behind its purplish
ovaries. On every side violets, here of the purest golden hue
and overpowering fragrance, appear in numbers beyond all
conception. And soon six or seven varieties of clover, all with
fine, delicate leaves, unfold flowers of yellow, red, and pink.
Delicate little crucifers of white and yellow shine modestly
below all these; little cream-colored flowers on slender scapes
look skyward on every side; while others of purer white, with
every variety of petal, crowd up among them. Standing now upon
some hill-side that commands miles of landscape, one is dazzled
with a blaze of color, from acres and acres of pink, great
fields of violets, vast reaches of blue, endless sweeps of
white.

Upon this--merely the warp of the carpet about to cover the
land--the sun fast weaves a woof of splendor. Along the
southern slopes of the lower hills soon beams the orange light
of the poppy, which swiftly kindles the adjacent slopes, then
flames along the meadow, and blazes upon the northern
hill-sides. Spires of green, mounting on every side, soon open
upon the top into lilies of deep lavender, and the scarlet
bracts of the painted-cup glow side by side with the crimson of
the cardinal-flower. An