SOME USEFUL NATIVE PLANTS OF NEW MEXICO. 



[With 13 plates.] 



By Paul C. Standley. 



When the Spanish conquistadores journeyed northward from the- 

 mountains and plains of Mexico into what is now the United States, 

 their initial expeditions led them along the narrow valley of the Bio 

 Grande. Near the banks of this stream, or sometimes at some dis- 

 tance from its waters, they found pueblos or Indian villages whose 

 inhabitants supported themselves principally by agriculture. The 

 surrounding regions were peopled by nomadic tribes who derived 

 their sustenance from the untilled resources of an apparently unpro- 

 ductive land. 



A not uncommon belief among people who have never visited the 

 far Southwest — that part of the United States consisting of New 

 Mexico, Arizona, western Texas, and the adjacent lands — is that it 

 is a vast desert. By a desert is generally understood a region where 

 the water supply is scanty or lacking and the vegetation sparse. 

 That such a condition is characteristic of large portions of New 

 Mexico must be acknowledged. Not a small proportion of that State 

 consists of sandy plains with but a thin mantle of vegetation, or of 

 barren rocky hills and great malpais — areas invested with compara- 

 tively recent lava flows. But there remains a considerable area com- 

 posed of fertile river valleys artificially watered by the streams which 

 flow through them, and a still larger region of high mountains cov- 

 ered with heavy forests and luxuriant herbage. Among the thickly 

 scattered ranges rise many high peaks upon which snow remains 

 through nearly the entire year. 



In the most arid desert regions plant life is abundant, even if incon- 

 spicuous, and the variety of species to be found there is greater than 

 one would infer from the number of individual plants. Many among 

 these have proved useful to man and were of the greatest importance 

 in the economy of the early inhabitants. Existence must have been 

 one continuous struggle among the aborigines, situated in a country 



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