<S0 S. B. PARISH 



thunderstorm. Yet in its depths percolates water which in places 

 may come to the surface as a short stream, or sufficiently near 

 to subirrigate a patch of grasses or sedges. Carrizo creek, 

 being a wash which represents the drainage of an extensive basin, 

 has not only its present wide sandy bed, but in former times has 

 built a valley of considerable width, save where it has been 

 obliged to cut its way through obstructing cross ridges. 



Through such a gorge La Puerta was entered from. San Felipe, 

 and through a lesser one Vallecito is entered. One emerges 

 from this pass upon a wide and gentle bajada covered with a 

 fine growth of large and vigorous Fouquieras, their long stems 

 closely clothed with foliage from base to apex, from which the 

 scarlet streamers of blossom were beginning to float. They were 

 set unusually near together, and only a scanty growth of low 

 shrubs was scattered in the intervals. 



Six miles below the pass a slender stream moistens a little flat 

 of salt grass. About it grow Airiplex leniiformis, Pluchea sericea , 

 Suaeda suffruiescens and Isocoma venela var. Beneath a group 

 of cottonwoods were the ruins of the old stage station, an adobe 

 hovel, one side of which had been occupied by men and the other 

 by mules. 



PALM SPRINGS 



The road now follows the sandy bed of Carrizo creek, along 

 and in which there is a scattering of Parosela spinosa, or the 

 bordering bench, which is thickly overgrown with Agaves. The 

 flower scapes were just shooting up, many of them eaten off by 

 hungry cattle. Fouquieras continued abundant, and at this 

 place (alt. 1200 ft.) the leaves were turning red and falling, 

 while the plants were in vivid bloom; lower in the desert the 

 stems were found quite leafless, but flowering continued. There 

 was a good representation of the usual low desert shrubs, mostly 

 isolated individually by bare intervals. The number of species 

 was limited, the most prominent being Larrea A triplex ca?iescens, 

 Hymenoclea salsola, Franseria dumosa, Parosela Emoryi and Opun- 

 lia Bigelovii, the last gregarious in small groups. Abronia aurita 

 and Lupinus arizonicus were the only noted herbs. 



