$30 Trees of Southern California. [ZOE 
the highest meadows. This animal and the ‘‘ California Lion”’ 
are the sheep-herders’ greatest enemies. 
52. Felis concolor Linne. California Lion; Panther. 
This beast is common in places on both sides of the moun- 
tains and extending to high altitudes. It is very destructive to 
sheep and colts. Some horse ranches have had to be abandoned 
on account of its ravages. 
53. Lynx rufus (Giild.) Wild Cat. 
Apparently this species has about the same range as the 
mountain lion. None were seen about Red Point, but it is said 
to occur in the neighborhood and is destructive to poultry yards. 
DISTRIBUTION OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA TREES. 
BY S. B. PARISH. 
The distinguishing feature of the natural vegetation of the 
five southern counties of California is the prevalence of shrubs. 
Over probably three-fourths of the surface this was the principal 
growth. Scattered in open order over desert and plain and 
valley affording clear space or sheltered covert for a multitude 
of humbler plants, or massed on hillsides in close and often 
impenetrable chaparral, it was seldom that shrubs gave place 
to meadows or forests. The aridity of the climate is doubtless 
the cause of this peculiar condition, woody plants being better 
able to endure a deficiency of moisture than those of a more 
succulent nature, while from the same deficiency the former are 
unable to develop into arboreal forms. From the same cause 
many species are here stunted shrubs or barely arborescent, 
which in cooler and moister climates attain to the dimensions of 
considerable trees. 
Hence, too, at lower altitudes the arboreal vegetation is 
mostly riparian. The streams are scantily fringed with cotton- 
wood, sycamore, alder, and a few species of willow, which do not 
extend beyond the irrigating influence of the water. In other 
cases the close proximity of a moist subsoil enables a grove of 
trees to be sustained, of which the cottonwood groves which 
formerly existed in the San Bernardino and the San Jacinto 
February 6, 1894. 
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