One familiar with the names of California native flowers, on looking over the catalogue of some great eastern flower firm, is surprised to notice how many beautiful flowers this state has given the world. We have scores of the sweetest things yet left, which from the nature of things we must continue to enjoy to the exclusion of the rest of the world. I do not know of any way in which they could be grown, except as they are here in this climate.

I refer to our mid-winter blooming plants and trees. These I suppose would be called alpine plants ; at least they grow on our lower mountains. While trying to bring to bay, the past winter, certain mountain grey squirrels, jack rabbits, and the lively California valley quail, I noticed these things. It causes a lover of flowers to halt, and to forget that it is December or January, to see these sweet, bright and tender things, peeping up at you from the cold wet ground, on a cold raw day when a heavy top-coat is a comfort. They do not care for cold rain or even snow. When the snow has crept down the mountain side, nearly down to the green valley below, these little beauties may be found a little further up, enjoying the scenery.

Stranger still are the trees and shrubs. Here is a fragrant laurel with its dark bright green varnished leaves, bursting freshly into bloom, its spicy fragrance, delighting its whole neighborhood; a rod away is another laurel of the same species, loaded with half grown nuts. Directly beyond is another, dropping its ripe nuts to the ground, to feed the squirrles and cunning mountain rats! The same is true of the manzanita - here a bush loaded with its bright scarlet berries ; the next bush is a mass of the sweetest flowers, too sweet for comfort, and if the day is bright, the swarm of bees around it shows that they appreciate it even if it is January. There is a scarlet flowering currant, a flame of bloom. Next is a gooseberry, bristling all over with sharp spines, and bearing modest drooping sweet bloom. - D. B. Wier, California.