To the northward, in Humboldt and the adjacent counties, whole hillsides
are covered with rhododendron, making a glorious melody of bee-bloom in
the spring. And the Western azalea, hardly less flowery, grows in massy
thickets three to eight feet high around the edges of groves and woods
as far south as San Luis Obispo, usually accompanied by manzanita; while
the valleys, with their varying moisture and shade, yield a rich variety
of the smaller honey-flowers, such as mentha, lycopus, micromeria,
audibertia, trichostema, and other mints; with vaccinium, wild
strawberry, geranium, calais, and goldenrod; and in the cool glens along
the stream-banks, where the shade of trees is not too deep, spiraea,
dog-wood, heteromeles, and calycanthus, and many species of rubus form
interlacing tangles, some portion of which continues in bloom for
months.
Though the coast region was the first to be invaded and settled by white
men, it has suffered less from a bee point of view than either of the
other main divisions, chiefly, no doubt, because of the unevenness of
the surface, and because it is owned and protected instead of lying
exposed to the flocks of the wandering "sheepmen.
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