Wonderful, indeed, is the world of beauty about us, 

 More wonderful still is the world of beauty within us." 



The Guide to Nature, 



EDUCATION AND RECREATION 



Vol. I 



SEPTEMBER, 1908 



No. 6 



OUTDOOR WoRLD 



Interesting Forms of Desert Plant Life 



BY CHARLOTTE M. HOAK, LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA 



O the lovers of the unique 

 and wonderful in nature 

 the great Colorado desert 

 or "The Land Beyond," is 

 a veritable land of enchant- 

 ment — a land of strange 

 anomalies, of stones that 

 float, of wood that sinks, 

 bare twigs that blossom, of burning heat, 

 of shifting sands and magic illusions. 



No factor of all its varied life is more 

 interesting than the innumerable types 

 of desert flora. Here, in this land of 

 little rain, a fierce struggle for existence 

 Sfoes on continually. The methods em- 

 ployed by the different plants in their 

 efforts to extract a scanty sustenance 

 from the parched soil, the care with 

 which they husband with utmost fru- 



gality their precious hoards of water and 

 the means they employ to defend them- 

 selves against the savage animals, as 

 hard put by thirst and famine as them- 

 selves, offer the most interesting field 

 for study and investigation to the nature 

 lover. As these desert forms are ob- 

 served day after day new secrets of na- 

 ture are revealed. 



We marvel at the wonderful powers 

 of endurance and resistance displayed by 

 each plant which maintains for any 

 length of time a footing in this desert 

 country. Flow truly is each one fitted 

 for a contest that besets no other form 

 of plant life, and Nature has called into 

 play her most far-sighted cunning in 

 equipping her less favored children for 

 their fierce struggle with the elements. 



Copyright 1008 by The Agassiz Association, Stamford, Conn. 



