Our pitcher-plant is one of the most wonderful and interesting of all the forms that grow, linking, as it were, the vegetable world with the animal, by its unnatural carnivorous habits. No ogre in his castle has ever gone to work more deliberately or fiendishly to entrap his victims while offering them hospitality, than does this plant-ogre. Attracted by the bizarre yellowish hoods of the tall, nodding flowers, the foolish insect alights upon the former and commences his exploration of the fascinating region. But at last, when he has partaken to satiety and would fain depart, he turns to retrace his steps. In the dazzlement of the transparent windows of the dome above, he loses sight of the darkened door in the floor by which he entered and flies forcibly upward, bumping his head in his eagerness to escape. He is stunned by the blow and plunges downward into the tube below. Here he struggles to rise, but countless downward-pointing, bristly hairs urge him to his fate. MARY ELIZABETH PARSONS, in _The Wild Flowers of California._ AUGUST 14. Sausalito is noted for its abundance of flowers. These not only grow in thick profusion in the quaint hillside gardens, but are planted beside the roadways, covering many an erstwhile bare and unsightly bank with trailing vines, gay nasturtiums and bright geraniums. There is something in the spirit of this hillside gardening, this planting of sweet blossoms for the public at large, that is very appealing. HELEN BINGHAM, in _In Tamal Land._ AUGUST 15. A GROUP OF CACTI. (IN CALIFORNIA.) Flower of the desert, type mysterious, strange, Like bird or monster on some sculptured tomb In Egypt's curious fashion wrought, what change Or odd similitude of fate, what range Of cycling centuries from out the gloom Of dusty ages has evolved thy bloom? In the bleak desert of an alien zone, Child of the past, why dwellest thou alone? Grotesque, incongruous, amid the flowers; Unlovely and unloved, standing aside, Like to some rugged spirit sheathed in pride; Unsmiling to the sun, untouched by showers-- The dew falls--every bud has drunk its fill: Bloom of the desert, thou art arid still! MARY E. MANNIN. AUGUST 16. In late spring and early summer upon the fading grasslands and on the dry sunny slopes of the hills, the Mariposa tulips set their long-stemmed chalices of delicate color. Bulbous plants of the lily family, they are frequently called Mariposa lilies, but as a matter of fact their relationship is very near to the true tulips of the Old World, and like the latter, they have been extensively introduced into cultivation both in this country and abroad. The petals are often conspicuously marked with lines and dots and eye-like spots in a manner that suggests the gay wings of a butterfly, whence the term, "Mariposa," which is the Spanish word for that insect. ELIZABETH H. SAUNDERS, in _California Wild Flowers._ AUGUST 17. COPA DE ORO. (CALIFORNIA POPPY.)