CONSPICUOUS VEGETATION OF REGION 37 



regular food, probably both cooked and raw, as charred 

 old leaves are found in the kitchen middens of their 

 caves. The tender bases of the tip leaves eaten raw- 

 are much like celery hearts. 



The mescal (Fig. 8), or little century plant, the 

 lechuguilla of the Mexicans, was to the Indians the most 

 important plant of the region, and it is still abundant 

 and able to hold its own against all enemies. It is 

 doubly armed with keen, rigid spikes on the tip of 

 every dagger leaf, and savage hooks grow along both 

 edges of the blades as if to help it to spear and hold its 

 prey. It is so carefully avoided by man and beast 

 that there seems to be no checks on its abundance ex- 

 cept its own choice of situation, the shallow soil of the 

 arid limestone ridges, the glaring heat of the desert sun, 

 and a minimum annual rainfall. For it, time has no 

 value, for it grows when there is a shower, and rests 

 until there is another, storing and protecting its energy 

 for many years, not for a full hundred years, but pos- 

 sibly sometimes for a quarter or a half of a century, be- 

 fore venturing to send up its great stem to blossom and 

 bear fruit, and then to die and scatter its myriad seeds. 

 Just before blossoming time, when bulging with its 

 rich store of accumulated plant food, the mescal was 

 formerly gathered, roasted, and eaten by the Indians as 

 their most important food. Now it seems to cumber 

 the ground, but it is useful in protecting enough of the 

 grasses and forage plants to provide seed to keep the 

 over-stocked ranges from being completely denuded. 



Numerous genera and species of cactus, from the 

 heavily spined Devil's head to the slender, branching 



