BOTaNJCaL 



The American Botanist 



VOL. XXVII. FEBRUARY, 1921. No. 1. 



When first the lone butterfly flits on the Wing, 

 When red glow the maples, so fresh and so pleasing, 

 O then comes the bluebird, the herald of spring. 

 And hails with his warblings the charms oj the season. 



— jilexander Wilson 



BOTANIZING IN THE PAINTED DESERT 



By W11.1.ARD N. C1.UTE. 

 A RIZONA, the sixth largest State in the Union, consists 

 '^^- almost entirely of desert lands. Of its more than 

 72,000,000 acres, only about one tenth is cultivated. The 

 name Arizona, appropriately enough, is often assumed to have 

 reference to the "arid zone" in which the State is situated, 

 but this derivation is incorrect. The name really comes from 

 an Indian word "Arizonaca" said to mean a place of small 

 springs. This, however, is only another way of putting it. 

 The springs are certainly small and exceedingly far apart. 



The southern part of the State has many good examples 

 of the true cactus desert, but in the northern part the scanty 

 vegetation is of quite a different type being characterized by 

 numerous small-leaved shrubs and herbs with only a scatter- 

 ing of cacti. It is this latter type of desert that prevails in the 

 broad valley occupied by the Little Colorado and its tribu- 

 taries in the northern tier of counties which, owning to the 

 multicolored cliffs and canyons that are here in evidence, has 

 come to be known as the Painted Desert. 



Nearly a hundred miles northeast of Flagstaff, in the 

 midst of this waterless expanse of drifting sands, stony plains, 

 and lava outcrops, lies the oasis of Tuba. It is the one ver- 

 dant spot in the wilderness and its flora, quite unlike that of 



