236 THE PLANT WORLD 



tion and Christianity have not quite outgrown superstition, however. 

 It has been justly written by Dr. Stewart, that the cultivation of 

 ornamental plants is one of the distinguishing marks of civilization. 

 Search the whole world over and you will not find among the lower 

 orders of people a single flower, shrub or tree cultivated for ornament 

 or even for shade. 



SAN JAQNTO MOUNTAIN. 



By S. B. Parish. 



IN the catalogue of American mountains, San Jacinto is not a familiar 

 name ; yet its peculiar situation invests it with certain biological 



features of unique interest. It is, as one traces the course of the 

 Sierra Nevada, the last of its high peaks. Not attaining to the first rank> 

 for it is but 10,805 feet high, it presents, on its northern aspect, the ap- 

 pearance of a more commanding altitude. Here the wide, low San Gor 

 gonio Pass separates it from the opposite and higher San Beraurdino 

 and Grayback mountains. From this base it towers aloft in rugged and 

 forbidding precipices, as though rent off by some tremendous catas- 

 trophy. 



Eastward the parched Colorado Desert lies shimmering through the 

 tremulous heat-waves. The fierce winds, as they sweep upward to the 

 pass, heap drifts of sand behind the ledges of rocks which jut out from 

 the mountain's base. The vegetation, answering the demands of its 

 environment, is of plants fitted to endure heat and drought. Over the 

 slopes are scattered cactuses and agaves; trees, green-barked and almost 

 leafless, mark the courses of the dry torrential washes. Where in the 

 frostless canons a feeble stream trickles through the sands, palms lift 

 their crowns. 



The altitude of the desert which supports this Lower Sonoran flora 

 is, at this point, about 500 feet above sea level, and the perpedicular dis- 

 tance to the summit of the mountain is, therefore, some 10,300 feet. So 

 steep is the acclivity that its slope seems no more than a third longer. 

 In that short interval one passes from the vegetation of the Mexican 

 Plateau to that of the circumpolar region. Instead of palms the gorges 

 of the summit shelter long-enduring — perhaps perpetual — snows, about 

 whose edges flourishes a true, though scanty, Arctic flora. Nowhere 

 else are characteristic plants of the Arctic and Sonoran zones separated 

 by so short an interval. Were it possible to clamber down the steep 

 descent, one might in an hour pass from beside plants whose leaves must 

 be nightly stiffened by frost, to those which never feel its touch. 



This summit is, moreover, the point furthest south where alpine 



