412 PROCEEDINGS OF THE ACADEMY OF [June, 



VI. The Baboquivari Mountains. 



We had not intended at first to visit the Baboquivaris. From 

 our camp, above 7,000 feet in the Santa Ritas, the long ridge, sixty 

 miles distant, bounded the western horizon. We could see the 

 wonderful obehsk of Baboquivari Peak catch the morning sun 

 while the great valley between slept in dusk. At evening it stood 

 silhouetted, velvet black, between the purple valley and flaming sky. 

 To visit this range, beyond which there is no water, became an 

 obsession, and finally we made the two-day journey by wagon, 

 camping midway on Sopori Creek, where there was a little stagnant 

 water for the horses. 



The Baboquivari Range is a single, long, north and south ridge with 

 numerous short lateral spurs. Its chief landmark, Baboquivari 

 Peak, is a huge obelisk of dull red rhyolite, standing on the main 

 axis of the range, flat topped, its sides practically vertical. The 

 foothills and lower slopes of the range have many barrel cacti, 

 opuntias, agaves, very few giant cacti. The lower courses of the 

 canyons are green with mesquite and cat-claw. The higher moun- 

 tains are grassy and lack large cacti; only a flat Mamillaria and the 

 little rainbow cactus were noticed. There is some scattering oak, 

 size of a peach tree, on western and northern slopes, and very few 

 stunted pinyons around the high crags. The herbaceous plants are 

 chiefly the same as in the Santa Ritas. Sycamore Canyon has a 

 richer sylva — buttonwood, walnut, hackberry, a fine dark-leaved 

 species of oak, etc. There is water in Oro Fino and Sycamore 

 Canyons, and we found some also near the head of Thomas Canyon, 

 about half a mile below the peak. Near the mouth of Sycamore 

 there was in 1910 a foresters' house (which we occupied), a corral 

 and a pump. Much further up there is running water. Our collect- 

 ing stations, enumerated below, are shown on the accompanying 

 sketch map.^ 



The following collecting stations were found: 



Station 21. Mt. Mildred, north side of the butte at summit of 

 the talus slope. 



5 We are indebted to Professor R. H. Forbes, of the University of Arizona, for 

 information correcting the names we had heard of the canyons. Sycamore 

 Canyon is also known as Brown's or Wasson and Brown's Canyon. Sabino 

 Otero has for many years ranged cattle in this canyon, and from this some persons 

 have called it Otero Canyon. We were also given the name Baboquivari Canyon 

 for Oro Fino Canyon. No topographic maj) has been published, so that hasty 

 note-book sketches made by one of us in course of a long day's tramp from Oro 

 Fino Canyon to the Peak and down to camp in Sycamore Canyon, have been 

 utilized to locate our type localities. 



