86 cook: quichua names of sweet potatoes 



fornia coast on the peninsula between Monterey Bay and Car- 

 mel Bay. This shows that the knobcone pine is, at least in part, 

 living in the same general area it occupied in Pleistocene time, 

 whereas the cypress has retreated for some hundreds of miles 

 up the coast, where apparently it has made its last stand. 



It is perhaps presumptuous with the data available to venture to 

 draw any conclusion as to the climatic and other conditions that 

 obtained when these cones were entombed in the Rancho La Brea 

 deposits, but such as it is it may be presented. According 

 to Sudworth the knobcone pine now occurs usually on dry, 

 exposed, steep southern slopes, but often in deep gulches and 

 protected ravines, growing on poor, dry, rocky, or gravelly and 

 sandy soils. It endures seasonal changes of temperature from 

 zero to 95° F., with occasional heavy snows and an annual rain 

 fall up to 45 inches. 



The Monterey cypress in its natural state appears to re- 

 quire quite different conditions. It grows on rocky sea cliffs 

 in clay loam soil, under a mild equable temperature, never at 

 freezing point and rarely above 90° F. The annual rain fall 

 is about 17 inches, but the moist sea winds keep the air humid 

 for the greater part of the year. As it is often planted in other 

 parts of California for wind-breaks, it has been found that it 

 will not only thrive in fresh soils away from the influence of 

 the sea, but is capable of withstanding a greater range in tem- 

 perature than that of its native range. If planted in dry soils 

 where the temperature falls below freezing, it will grow well and 

 mature its wood before frost. 



Inasmuch as the trees themselves, judging from these two 

 cones, appear to have changed very little between the Pleisto- 

 cene and the present time, it at least suggests that their climatic 

 requirements have likewise suffered little change. 



ETHNOBOTANY.— Quichua names of sweet potatoes. 0. F. 

 Cook, Bureau of Plant Industry. 



Quichua was the language of the Incas at the time of the Span- 

 ish conquest of Peru, and is still spoken by a large native popula- 

 tion. The ancient center of the Quichuas is in the region about 

 Cuzco on the eastern slope of the Andes, from an altitude of 



