‘ CONTRIBUTIONS TO WESTERN BOTANY 11 
Douglas and Annual Rings. 
During the summer of 1931 Douglas, of the Carnegie Inst. 
at Tucson, was reported in the newspapers as saying that the an- 
nual rings of trees and shrubs are true indices of the years elapsed 
while they were being formed, and on this basis he made an elabo- 
orate summary of the time since certain cliff dwellings were built. 
f Mr. Douglas is a botanist of even ordinary education and ex- 
perience in the southwest he knows that the statement is a false- 
hood. I haveno sympathy with the idea that the public likes to 
a 
ings, a fact that I discovered when I was Secretary of the Utah 
meeting of the A. A. S. 
North of lat. 42° annual rings are fairly indicative of the age 
its place a wet and a so-called dry season, where the lowest grow- 
vegetation will start whenever there is enough moisture, 1] e 
area in question there is a great mixup so there is often 
enough rainfall in the spring to bring the trees into leaf, to m y 
own knowledge this has been the case past ni ars 
ears, 
and therefore to make an ‘‘annual‘‘ ring. Then when everything 
‘dries up in the hot months and takes a rest till the rainy season be- 
gins, vegetation makes a new start and a new ring on the trees, 
For this reason there are two rings a year, and it is a misnomer 
to call them annual rings, There is another complication. There 
have been two years in the last nine when over a part of the area 
there was no rain in the fall, and so no ring was formed. The 
desert is notorious for its spotty rainfall. 
ow knowing these facts what is the sense in going before a 
gaping world and chattering in terms of years about the age of the 
cliff-dwellers ?. 
