An old Californian song well describes the beauty and luxuriance of this suggestive Flower.
"O'er the foothills, through the meadows, Midst the canons' lights and shadows, Spreading with their amber glow, Lo, the golden poppies grow! Golden poppies, deep and hollow, Golden poppies, rich and mellow, Radiant in their robes of yellow, Lo, the golden poppies grow!" The honour of having named the Gate, however, is generally conceded to General John C.Fremont.In his "Memoirs" he says: "To this Gate I gave the name of Chrysopylae or Golden Gate, for the same reasons that the harbour of Byzantium (Constantinople) was named the Golden Horn (Chrysoceras)." It has been hinted nevertheless that Sir Francis Drake gave it its appellation; and if this be so the euphonious name would be suggested by his ship in which he sailed along this coast, the _Golden Hind._ At first the ship bore the name of _Pelican_, but at Cape Virgins, at the entrance to the Straits of Magellan, Drake changed it to the _Golden Hind_, in honour of his patron Sir Christopher Hatton, on whose coat of arms was a Golden Hind.

Not without interest do we follow the fortunes of this ship.

When finally she was moored in her English port after her voyages, and was put out of commission as unseaworthy, and fell into decay, though guarded with care, John Davis, the English navigator, had a chair made out of her timbers, which he presented to the University of Oxford, still guarded sacredly in the Bodleian Library.

No wonder that Cowley, while sitting in it, wrote his stirring lines, and apostrophised it as "Great Relic!" How noble this thought.
"The straits of time too narrow are for thee-- Launch forth into an undiscovered sea, And steer the endless course of vast eternity; Take for thy sail, this verse, and for thy pilot, me!" Had we stood on these lofty shores by the Golden Gate in the early summer of 1579 we would have descried the _Golden Hind_ ploughing the waters of the Pacific northward.

Her course was as far north as latitude 42 deg.