124 THE PLANT WORLD 



mates plants are dormant in winter to escape the cold. EpJiedra Neva- 

 densis was abundant, as were Opuntia ecliinocaiya, and the unarmed 

 0. ramosissima. So was an Amsonia, its flowers faintly tinged with 

 blue (A. hreviflora), and there yet lingered a few of the brilliant red 

 GalocJwrtus (G. Weedii), but we were too late to see this in its full 

 beauty. In one place we passed through a fine plantation of Lupinus 

 hrevicaulis, and an occasional specimen of the rare Lomatiiim Mohavense 

 was yet to be seen. 



We were now in the Yucca belt, a region thinly covered with the 

 grotesque trees of a single species {Y. brevifolia), locally known as the 

 " Tree Yucca." They attain a height seldom exceeding thirty feet, and 

 shoot out a few angular branches, clothed at the ends with a sheaf of 

 short, dagger-like leaves, of an olive-green color, which harmonize well 

 with the prevailing grayness of the landscape. 



Noon found us at the Hesperia crossing of the Mojave. Miles back 

 the water had sunk away in the wide bed of sand that indicates the 

 river's course. But on its further bank the county maintains a well for 

 the use of travelers, and here we stopped to lunch under the scanty 

 shade of a yucca clump before undertaking the waterless twenty miles 

 that lay before us. The sand dunes about us were partly held by the 

 half-buried tufts of a Poa {P. Uroillianum), which grows only in such 

 places. Early in the season some choice annuals inhabit this barren 

 strand, and we were fortunate enough to find a single specimen of the 

 rare GolUnsia Davidsonii still remaining. 



Leaving the sand dunes the road entered a long ravine, whose sides 

 were decked with the great lilac-colored flowers of the desert aster {A. 

 tortifolius) and the yellow marigold-blossoms of Dysodia Gooperi, a plant 

 whose odor justifies its generic name. Oxytheca perfoUata spread its 

 radiate circle of red, and a few other less conspicuous plants were seen. 

 These plants accompanied us throughout the afternoon, during which 

 the only novelty encountered was a fine patch of the recently described 

 Plantago picta. 



Late in the afternoon we sighted the point of rocks that marks the 

 situation of Rabbit Springs, our destination for the night, and at the same 

 time perceived that we had missed the fork of the road which would have 

 led us to it. There was nothing to do but to strike across the country, 

 winding, as best we could, among the cactuses and other almost equally 

 horrid shrubs. At length we came out on a dry lake, smooth and level 

 as a race track, and as bare, except for the fringe of nitrophilous 

 vegetation which surrounded it. The Mojave desert is not avast sandy 

 plain, as one is apt to imagine a desert to be. It is cut up into valleys 

 by short ranges of mountains. What rainfall it has is violent, and it 

 immediately runs off from the steep, bare mountains, and settling in the 



