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.