88 S. B. PARISH 



for a short space where the descent is slight, and in it grows an 

 unaccustomed fellowship of plants. A few scrub oaks and 

 shrubby willows (Quercus dumosa and Salix laevigata) have passed 

 over from the further side of the summit, while numerous robust 

 clumps of Juncus acutus var. sphaerocarpus represent a still more 

 distant horizon. This rush is abundant immediately along the 

 coast, and according to the books does not extend beyond the 

 neighborhood of the sea. It is, however, one of a small number 

 of plants which are plentiful within the influence of the moist 

 sea air, and then disappear from the intervening territory, to 

 reappear in small numbers in one or two places on the desert 

 borders. 4 In view of their extreme rarity in the latter habitat, 

 which they evidently find uncongenial, it may be possible to 

 regard them here as relict plants of a flora which, at the time 

 when the trough of the desert was an arm of the sea, must have 

 differed somewhat from the present. 



The principal representatives of the desert flora were Cha- 

 mcesyce setiloba, Salvia Vaseyi and a Sphaeralcea which has been 

 doubtfully included in S. ambigua. It is occasionally found 

 in the desert mountain's, and always along the borders of the 

 washes within the canyons, and its numerous slender stems, 

 1-1.75 meters long and its light purple flowers, present a very 

 different facies from that of the shorter and stiffer stems and the 

 brick-red flowers of S. ambigua, which is distinctly a mesa or 

 hillside plant. The field botanist will not be satisfied to in- 

 clude it in that species, but as no strictly technical character has 

 been found to separate it, its final disposition may best be left 

 to a monographer of this difficult genus. 



The summit of the canyon is of coarse decomposed granite. 

 In it grew an abundance of Gilia pungens var. Hallii and Astrag- 

 alus Vaseyi, and a few specimens of A. coccinea, the most bril- 

 liant species of the genus. 



4 The others are Adianium emarginatum, Saxifraga Parryi, Slemodia duranli- 

 folia and N emacaulis Nultallii. All these, as well as the Juncus, occur spar- 

 ingly at Palm Springs, at the desert base of San Jacintomountains, and Nemacaulis,- 

 but none of the others, has been collected on Carrizo creek. 



