FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   66   67   68   69   70   71   72   73   74   75   76   77   78   79   80   81   82   83   84   85   86   87   88   89   >>  
s, mingling its foliage secretly with its host, comes down with the stream tangles to the village fences, skips over to corners of little used pasture lands and the plantations that spring up about waste water pools; but never ventures a footing in the trail of spade or plough; will not be persuaded to grow in any garden plot. On the other hand, the horehound, the common European species imported with the colonies, hankers after hedgerows and snug little borders. It is more widely distributed than many native species, and may be always found along the ditches in the village corners, where it is not appreciated. The irrigating ditch is an impartial distributer. It gathers all the alien weeds that come west in garden and grass seeds and affords them harbor in its banks. There one finds the European mallow _(Malva rotundifolia_) spreading out to the streets with the summer overflow, and every spring a dandelion or two, brought in with the blue grass seed, uncurls in the swardy soil. Farther than either of these have come the lilies that the Chinese coolies cultivate in adjacent mud holes for their foodful bulbs. The _seegoo_ establishes itself very readily in swampy borders, and the white blossom spikes among the arrow-pointed leaves are quite as acceptable to the eye as any native species. In the neighborhood of towns founded by the Spanish Californians, whether this plant is native to the locality or not, one can always find aromatic clumps of _yerba buena_, the "good herb" (_Micromeria Douglassii_). The virtue of it as a febrifuge was taught to the mission fathers by the neophytes, and wise old dames of my acquaintance have worked astonishing cures with it and the succulent _yerba mansa_. This last is native to wet meadows and distinguished enough to have a family all to itself. Where the irrigating ditches are shallow and a little neglected, they choke quickly with watercress that multiplies about the lowest Sierra springs. It is characteristic of the frequenters of water borders near man haunts, that they are chiefly of the sorts that are useful to man, as if they made their services an excuse for the intrusion. The joint-grass of soggy pastures produces edible, nut-flavored tubers, called by the Indians _taboose_. The common reed of the ultramontane marshes (here _Phragmites vulgaris_), a very stately, whispering reed, light and strong for shafts or arrows, affords sweet sap and pith which makes a passable sugar
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   66   67   68   69   70   71   72   73   74   75   76   77   78   79   80   81   82   83   84   85   86   87   88   89   >>  



Top keywords:

native

 

species

 

borders

 

ditches

 

European

 
common
 

garden

 

corners

 

village

 
affords

spring

 
irrigating
 

succulent

 

meadows

 

astonishing

 

worked

 

acquaintance

 

Californians

 

locality

 

Spanish


founded

 

acceptable

 

neighborhood

 

aromatic

 

febrifuge

 

taught

 

mission

 

neophytes

 

fathers

 

virtue


Douglassii

 
clumps
 

distinguished

 

Micromeria

 

Sierra

 
marshes
 

ultramontane

 

Phragmites

 

vulgaris

 

taboose


Indians

 

edible

 

flavored

 

tubers

 

called

 

stately

 
whispering
 

passable

 

strong

 

shafts