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Kimes Entry Number
228
Original Date
8-1-1900
Publication
The Atlantic Monthly, v. 86, no. 514
Page/Column
pp. 167-179
Recommended Citation
Muir, John, "The Wild Gardens of the Yosemite Park." (1900). John Muir: A Reading Bibliography by Kimes (Muir articles 1866-1986). 257.
https://scholarlycommons.pacific.edu/jmb/257
William and Maymie Kimes Annotation
"Going up the Sierra across the Yosemite Park to the Summit peaks ... you find as much variety in the vegetation as in the scenery. Change succeeds change with a bewildering rapidity for in a few days you pass through as many climates and floras ... as you would in walking along the lowlands to the Arctic Ocean." In reviewing the shrubs and flowers of each plant zone, Muir, the botanist, uses scientific names, but for each one he has words of appreciation and endearment. The flowers become "gentle mountaineers" "Nature's darlings" or "blessed companions." The white Mariposa lily is a ''plant saint, that every one must .love and so be made better." Muir, being the perennial tree lover, concludes his essay considering "the greatest of all the gardens"-the blossoming of the forest trees-"the noblest flowers in the world worth a lifetime of love work to know .... "