236 CHANNEL ISLANDS OF CALIFORNIA 



most attractive trees bears her name as discoverer — 

 Trask's mountain mahogany {Cercocarpus traskicB), an 

 extremely rare tree, not only limited to Santa Cata- 

 lina, but very rare here. It attains a height of about 

 twenty feet; its trunk is short and crooked, but pic- 

 turesque. Once in coming down from Mount Orizaba 

 I became entangled in the greasewood and led and 

 pulled my weary horse down the side of a steep ravine 

 leading into Swain's Cafion on the north coast, where 

 I came upon a grove of dark green trees which I knew 

 to be Lyonothamnus , one of the rarest of trees, con- 

 fined to Santa Catalina, San Clemente, and Santa 

 Cruz. Mr. Harry PoUey, another devoted botanist 

 of the island, had written me about it long before, as 

 follows : 



"Dear Mr. Holder: — 



"Am sorry I was delayed in answering yours in regard to 

 the Lyonothamnus floribundus. The nearest grove to Avalon, 

 and one of the best on the island, is up Swain's Canon about 

 half a mile and can be seen from the beach. Is a thick dark 

 green clump of straight trees about thirty feet high, covering 

 space of one hundred by one hundred feet on side of steep 

 hill one hundred feet above canon to the left; and just across 

 a small canon above to the southwest is another small clump. 



"Next nearest clump is away up on Black Jack, perhaps fifty 

 yards below the ridge trail to the Isthmus, about on a line 

 between the peak and White's Landing. 



"Another clump a little way up the left canon from Goat 

 Harbor." 



There are several groves in the little-visited north 

 or west island beyond the Isthmus. The tree is named 

 after Mr. William S. Lyon, who explored the island in 

 1884-85. Lyon's ironwood is one of the most inter- 



