THE AMERICAN BOTAXIST 85 



juniper and pinyon pine, interspersed with the quinine bush 

 (Cozcaiiia). Here Endische spring gushes out, one of the few 

 places in this vast region of parched sands where water can be 

 obtained. This fact is considered of sufficient importance to 

 warrant indicating the spring on all maps, though there are 

 neither houses nor settlements near it. It is merely a fountain 

 of living water in the desert which, if found, makes camping 

 a pleasure and if missed, a hardship. A rill of some propor- 

 tions runs away from the spring, but it soon becomes lost in 

 the desert sands and its waters have practically no effect on 

 the vegetation, except that a few willows, roses, columbines 

 and evening primroses mark its course for a few hundred feet. 



The sides of Navajo mountain are in most places too pre- 

 cipitous to admit of an ascent. There is an indistinct trail which 

 begins near a ruined pueblo, "Red House", on the south side 

 of the mountain, and ascends between two lines of cliffs to a 

 spring and huge red rock on the shoulder of the mountain. 

 From here the ascend to the summit is easy. The route usual- 

 ly taken, however, is by a trail up the eastern side of the moun- 

 tain, ending at War-god spring at an altitude of about 8,000 

 feet. The ascend begins in a forest of juniper and pinyon pine, 

 with an undergrowth of manzanita, but as one climbs upward 

 he soon perceives that the plants present a rather distinct zo- 

 nation. On the plain below are the sage brush and joint fir, 

 next are the junipers and nut pines, and these merge into an 

 open park-like forest of huge yellow pines at an altitude of 

 about 7,000 feet. This forest continues upward nearly to the 

 summit, but though it thins out upward, there is no dearth of 

 conifers, for Engelmann's spruce and the Douglas fir occur in 

 ever increasing numbers as the ascent continues. The only 

 noticeable broad-leaved tree on the mountain is the aspen which 

 forms extensive thickets in moist places and occasionally be- 

 comes a tree of considerable size. 



A change still more striking takes place in the herbaceous 

 vegetation as one goes upward. On the plain and in the juni- 



