1874 San Diego City Directory
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CITY OF SAN DIEGO.
AMONG THE WILD FLOWERS OF SAN DIEGO.
BY JAMES S. LIPPINCOTT.
The vegetation of San Diego presents an extraordinary appearance to the visitor from the Northern and Eastern States, and, if he be possessed of scientific proclivities, will prove exceedingly interesting. Should he arrive in December, his attention will be early arrested by the peculiar mildness and the even range of temperature, which permits the continued blooming of many plants, and the appearance of flowers, whose congeners he is accustomed to find greeting the early spring in his Eastern home. The equable character of the temperature through December, January and February is strikingly expressed in the stagnant condition of sundry incipient flowers, which, having advanced to the condition of colored buds, await through the three months named for a few warmer days in which to evolve their colors. One of the most remarkable of these is a caper-like plant (Isomeris arborea), which early in December exhibits a sparse bloom, and continues to labor under the difficulties of its condition, making no advance until March, when a few degrees of additional heat open its fine, yellow flowers, and soon its large inflated brown seed-vessels appear at the extremity of the long protruded pistils.
The earliest plant which appears upon the lower bench, or mesa, is a saxifrage. This, like its Eastern sisters, leads the floral throng, and blooms in December; but, unlike them, enjoys the advantage of a bulbous root - a necessary aid for preserving its life during the long droughts of summer. Drawing sustenance from a depth of from four to six inches, it sends up its long slender scape, develops one simple leaf, and a pale, diminutive flower, but, anchored below, resists the unfavorable agencies that would destroy
