This is a very attractive shrub, from two to ten feet high, with long, slender branches, clothed with close bunches of leaves and bearing large clusters of tiny flowers, something like Spiraea. They have a feathery, creamy appearance, owing to the pale yellow stamens, and the olive-green foliage sets them off to perfection, the effect of the whole being very graceful, as the slender, flower-tipped branches sway to and fro in the wind. This is the most abundant and characteristic shrub of the higher Coast Ranges and Sierra Nevada Mountains and sometimes covers miles of mountain slopes, looking a good deal like heather when it is not in bloom. When the chaparral is composed entirely of this shrub it is called chamisal. A. sparsijblium of southern California, has scattered leaves and larger flowers. It is very fragrant and used medicinally by Spanish Cali-fornians and Indians, who call it Yerba del Pasmo, or "convulsion herb."

There are many kinds of Spiraea, natives of the north temperate zone; shrubs, without stipules and with clusters of white or pink flowers.

Chamise Adenostoma fasciculatum.