And there are several fine orchids, habenaria, and cypripedium,
the latter very rare, once common in the Valley near the foot of Glacier
Point, and in a bog on the rim of the Valley near a place called
Gentry's Station, now abandoned. It is a very beautiful species, the
large oval lip white, delicately veined with purple; the other petals
and the sepals purple, strap-shaped, and elegantly curled and twisted.
Of the lily family, fritillaria, smilacina, chlorogalum and several
fine species of brodiaea, Ithuriel's spear, and others less prized are
common, and the favorite calochortus, or Mariposa lily, a unique genus
of many species, something like the tulips of Europe but far finer. Most
of them grow on the warm foothills below the Valley, but two charming
species, C. coeruleus and C. nudus, dwell in springy places on the
Wawona road a few miles beyond the brink of the walls.
The snow plant (Sarcodes sanguinea) is more admired by tourists than any
other in California. It is red, fleshy and watery and looks like a
gigantic asparagus shoot. Soon after the snow is off the round it rises
through the dead needles and humus in the pine and fir woods like a
bright glowing pillar of fire. In a week or so it grows to a height of
eight or twelve inches with a diameter of an inch and a half or two
inches; then its long fringed bracts curl aside, allowing the twenty- or
thirty-five-lobed, bell-shaped flowers to open and look straight out
from the axis.
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