Botanizing in Inyo County. 



A. Davidson, M. I). 



My annual July holiday and botanizing trip, for the two 

 are combined, were spent at Andrew's Camp on Bishop Creek 



sixteen miles from the town of Bishop, in Inyo County. 



When the S.P. railroad from .Mohave is broadguaged all 

 the way to Reno, the eastern slope of the Sierras, the trout- 

 laden streams of Cottonwood Creek, Bishop Creek and Owens 

 River with their numerous lakes will become the Mecca of 

 all the Waltonians of our district. Then one can leave Los 

 Angeles at night and before noon of the next day have fished 

 his noon day meal in the Sierras at 7-8000 feet altitude. 



At present the railway faeilities are not alluring. From 

 Mohave northward the aqueduct train, a combination of cattle 

 truck and day coach, shuffles itself along the sunbaked trail 

 at about ten miles an hour. At every siding the wearisome 

 switehings suggest a rehearsel for a better future. As the 

 fare is five cents a mile, one feels he is being taxed on the 

 unearned increment of the scenery, but the latter is worth the 

 price. The steep, turreted front of 100 miles of Sierra, once 

 wreathed and completely mantled with winter snow, now fast 

 disappearing, still showed vast snow fields and glaciers that 

 make this seem a panorama of sublime beauty and rugged 

 grandeur that ean scarcely be excelled in any country. 



The broad guage ends at Owenyo. The one and only 

 habitation, the "hotel," (a line of box cars) with clean com- 

 fortable beds, is the resting place for the night — if they are 

 not all occupied. If they are the sand outside is clean, the 

 desert air is glorious, and you are to be congratulated if 

 mother earth is your hostess. 



About midday we reached Laws, staged to Bishop and 

 spent the remainder of that day and the following exploring 

 Bishop. 



Bishop stands on what was once the tule-covered cienega 

 through which Bishop Creek filtered its way to join Owens 

 River and thence to Owen's Lake. Its soil in consequence is 

 a peat rich in all that makes to fertility. 



The whole district is exceedingly fertile but at present it 

 is irrigated to such an excess that the natural herbage has- 

 been almost wholly supplanted by immigrant weeds and 

 sedges. Among the latter is the troublesome "taboos" a 

 tuberous-bearing carex that threatens to dispossess everything. 



Most prominent among the immigrant plants is the Sweet 

 Clover, melilotus alba — which borders the roadways in dense 

 masses. Its prevalance here is ascribed to the intentional 

 broadcast sowing of the seed by " thoughtful" bee keepers. 



