I found this book excerpt while looking for something else. I thought it was a nice description of all our usual wildflowers. He even saw some Turricula! (which he calls Nama Parryi....Sticky Nama = Poodle Dog Bush)
The book is "The American botanist, devoted to economic and ecological botany, Volumes 26-29 By Willard Nelson Clute"
"By George L. Moxley Monday this year, Mr. Robert Kessler and the writer determined on a trip farther back into the San Gabriel Range than we had before had time for. By trolley and auto stage we went by way of Pasadena; up the Arroyo Seco Canyon and then walked about four and a half miles to Switzer's Camp where we spent the night. Early Sunday morning we started for Pine Flats, via Barley Flats, a distance, according to signs posted along the way, of about seventen and a half miles, but to one walking over mountain trails apparently a half more. Monday the return journey was made by way of the Trail Fork Canyon, the West Fork of the San Gabriel River, around San Gabriel Peak, Mt. Markham and Mt. Lowe, to Alpine Tavern, where we took the trolley for Los Angeles.
In the lower Arroyo Seco the canyon sides are covered with the usual chaparral of chamiso, or greasewood (Addiostema fasciculatum), not the greasewood of the plains but a member of the Rose family, having small linear fascicled leaves and small white flowers in rather large panicled racemes; wild buckwheat (Eriogonum fasciculatum foliolosum), which also has small fascicled leaves and whitish flowers in terminal cymose umbels; scrub oak (Quercus dumosa) and other shrubby growth. The canyon floor is shaded by alder (Alnus rhombifolia), live oak (Quercus agrifolia), sycamore (Platamts racemosa) and occasionally other trees. The flowers that claimed our notice as we passed along were Godetia Dudleyana, now in full flower and making a fine show of pink flecked with purple; wild Canterbury bells (Phacelia VVhitlavia), with their deep blue bells; large-flowered phacelia (P. grandiflora) with its white to lavender rotate corollas; Antirrhinum glandulosum, with its tall spikes of rose colored flowers; Gilia Grinnelli, a slender plant with loosely fewflowered branches, the corollas somewhat lilac in color with a purple tube; sticky monkey flower (Diplacus longiflorus) with tubular-funnel form flowers, the upper lip two-lobed and the lower three-lobed more or less crenately toothed; and the tree poppy (Dendromecon rigidum). Occasionally we saw Lilium Humboltii but the full glory of this magnificent lily is only to be found at higher elevations and especially where it is more unusual for excursionists to come. The reason for this is obvious. It grows in loose rich soil, never in bogs or wet places. The stems are often more than four feet high and sometimes bear forty to fifty flowers, the segments of which are two or more inches long strongly revolute and reflexed, reddish-orange with maroon spots.
The upper part of the Arroyo Seco runs approximately east and west and meets the upper end of the West Fork of the San Gabriel at a "saddle" almost directly back of San Gabriel Peak. The chief trees of this portion of the Arroyo are canyon oak (Quercus chrysolepis), laurel bay (Umbellularia californica), a fair sized tree with lanceolate leaves having the characteristic bay odor and flavor, and broad-leaved maple (Acer maerophyllum). The big cone spruce (Pseudtsuga maerocarpa) is found in suitable situations on the canyon sides. The more showy flowers found along here were the so-called scarlet honeysuckle .(Pentstemon cordifolius), with scandent stems, cordate leaves and scarlet tubular flowers. It is usually found below 3000 feet and replaced above that elevation by P. ternatus which has much the same sort of flower but the leaves are lanceolate and in whorls of three. Lilium Humboltii was here in fine condition some of the stalks being at least five feet high and having 40 or more flowers and buds. On the dry ridges was Calochortus Weedii purpurascens, one of our finest Mariposa tulips. The sepals are narrow and long-acuminate, the petals cuneate-obovate, purplish splotched with brown and densely hairy within.
From the above mentioned saddle, the trail winds in a continuously upward but not difficult grade to Barley Flats. Along this trail we found a very fine specimen of broom rape (Orobanche tuberosa)having a dense purplish bloom throughout. This is parasitic on Adenostoma, has a bulbous base, fleshy stem and is often branched at the inflorescence. The flowers are rather tubular, somewhat bilabiate, yellowish to purplish. Most of the specimens observed were past blooming, dry and more or less insect eaten. Along the upper portion of this trail we found some of the most striking specimens of Diplacus longiflorus we had seen anywhere. The clumps were often one and a half feet in diameter and the colors ranged from a creamy white to a salmon buff. Frequently a clump of the lightest color would be alongside one of the very dark making a very effective contrast. At about 5300 feet the trail passes over another saddle to the north side of a rounded summit which is a little less than 5600 ft. elevation. On this north slope we found some very fine specimens of Heuchera elegans. This little alum-root grew at the base of rocks and trees. It has a thick rootstock, roundish-cordate basal leaves and cymosely branched panicles of small flowers with pink calyx and white petals. Here also were many magnificent clumps of Pentstemon Palmeri, some of them nearly three feet in diameter and two feet high. The large creamy lavender flowers made a very fine show. Almost equally fine was the display of Nama Parryi, some of the stalks of which were five or more feet high and carried spikes nearly two feet long of purplish funnelform flowers.
Coming out on Barley Flats, which is an open rolling ridge, having a general elevation of about 5500 ft., covered with grasses and forested with big cone pine (Pinus Coulteri), we found various patches of color. Portions were quite white with Linanthus androsaceus, a slender plant with palmately linear-lobed leaves and salver-shaped flowers with a very slender tube and oval lobes. The flowers vary from white to pinkish. Other parts were deep orange with Chaenactis glabriuscula, while scattered all about were clumps of Lupinus Hallii, plants of Calochortus invenustus montanus with pale lavender flowers, and mats of Eriogonum Kennedyi (?) . This last was not yet in flower, which accounts for the slight uncertainty in its determination, but its interest for this trip lay in its being the host of several plants of the slender broom-rape (Thalesia fasciulata). Many smaller and less massed flowers were scattered all about, although the season was rather late.
Leaving Barley Flats the trail took an eastward trend and we travelled about five miles along a dry ridge having very little of especial interest. About the only color to relieve the monotonous gray-green of the chaparral, which is here composed largely of a manzanita (Arctostaphylos tomentosa), was an occasional clump of woolly blue curls (Trichostema lanatum), the Romero of the early Spanish settlers, and more of the Diplacus we have before mentioned. We now decended to a nice little stream bordered with willows and grasses where we found the Dogbane (Apocynum cannabinum) quite common. Here we also collected some fine spikes of false lady slipper (Epipactis giganteum). "The casual observer alludes to this plant as a 'Lady's slipper', and he is not so very far wrong, for it is closely related to the Cypripedinm, and resembles it much in habit, in the aspect of its leafy stems and in the general form of its blossom. But instead of having its lip in the form of a sac, it is open and curiously jointed, the lower portion swinging freely, as upon a hinge. When this lid is raised, one can fancy some winged seraph or angel enshrined within, but when lowered the resemblance is more of a monk bowed in meditation. * * * Dull purples and greens predominate, though the lip is tinged with orange or yellow."
From this crossing it was a hard, dry, hot, sandy climb to Pine Flats, which is much like Barley Flats in general appearance and about the same elevation, but the forest is of yellow pines (P. ponderosa and P. Jeffreyi). Two very common plants on the rolling ridges were lkilsamorrhiza deltoidea and Lupinus Grayi. We found a few belated snow plants (Sarcodes sanguinea) under the pines. This saprophytic ericaceous plant is very striking with its reddish fleshy, scaly spike and deep red companulate flowers. Some plants that were of considerable interest to us, in that we had not previously collected them, were the St. John's-wort (Hypericum formosum),,Pentstemon labrosus and Calachortus pallidoShs (?). This last grew along the stream and in moist meadows which seemed to us very unusua 1 places to find Calochortus.
On the return trip from Pine Flats to the ridge we had traversed the day before we collected Oxytheca trilobata, a polygonaceous plant with spiny bracts and three-lobed white petals, Orobanche tuberosa and Hulsea vestita. Reaching the top of this ridge we turned south into the Trail Fork of the San Gabriel, otherwise known as "Shortcut Canyon", where the vegetation was much like that of the upper Arroyo Seco. At one point we noticed a patch of Epipactis perhaps two or three square feet in area in which were eighteen fine spikes. The display of Lilium Humboltii in this canyon was also very fine.
Coming out of the West Fork we found ourselves farther from the trolley than we had anticipated with four miles of hot sandy trail to be traversed before climbing out of the canyon for another five miles of ups and downs, principally ups, so we did not try to make any further collections. Some plants of Zauschneria in flower were noted, however, rather earlier than is usual for this handsome scarlet fuchsia-like flower to appear. It was not collected but we noticed in passing that it is of a form that has been tentatively referred to Z. latifolia but which will have to find another name, since it is very distinct from typical Z. latifolia (Hook.) Greene.
Thus ended a very interesting, if rather strenous, trip. To enumerate all the plants seen would require too much space, so only some of the most noticable have been mentioned. It may be noticed that few "common names" are given. Many of our California wild-flowers have not yet entered enough into the life of the people to be blessed with names other than those bestowed upon them by botanists."
