84 WITH THE FLOWERS AND TREES 



quiera splendens). 2 Others, however, reveal them- 

 selves less readily. Sometimes these lie like gems 

 flat upon the earth, to be seen only by men who are 

 given to lowly looking. Among such, none is more 

 appealing, I think, than the exquisite desert star 

 (Eremiastrum bellioides), resembling a tiny Eng- 

 lish daisy white-rayed around a golden center, and 

 blooming in little circles on the open sands. My al- 

 legiance, however, sometimes wavers in the pres- 

 ence of another dainty groundling with disks of 

 quiet yellow snugly set in the midst of trim little 

 gray leaves, thick like bits of woolen cloth. Indeed 

 it is not hard to think them cut out of that material. 

 Dr. Gray, doubtless, served science well enough 

 when he gave this plant the name Psafhyrotes an- 

 nua, but it deserves a more musical one. In the 

 same modest fellowship are purple-flowered namas, 

 and coldenias with quaint little fans of leaves, deep 

 furrowed and olive green; yellow suncups with 

 queer twisting seed-vessels hiding in the foliage like 

 tiny coiling green snakes; and there are biscutellas 



2 This remarkable thorn, because of the readiness with which cut- 

 tings root, is often planted for hedges and corral fences. The 

 stem is rich in resin and a peculiar inflammable wax. Mexicans cut 

 it into splints, which may be lighted like candles, and burn with a 

 pleasant fragrance. These splints are called ocotillas, or little ocotes 

 ocote being the Mexicans' name for a certain pine tree whose 

 wood is much used to split into torch material in Mexico as pine- 

 knots a century ago were used by our forefathers. 



