IN CALIFORNIA 87 



mesquits and alders bear them company; and in 

 such tangles, too a rare surprise I have found the 

 lovely orchid, Epipactis gigantea, thrusting up to 

 the light its plaited leaves from which spring flowery 

 racemes in green and purple. The ground immedi- 

 ate beneath the palm is usually slippery with a lit- 

 ter of fallen flower stalks shed after the fruit has 

 ripened and dropped. The old leaves, when brown, 

 drop backward and hang head downward against 

 the trunk, forming upon old trees except when 

 fire has been at work a dense thatch, protecting 

 the bole from the onslaught of wind and weather. 

 After a long Jornada through sun and sand, such as 

 we had made to Seven Palms, it is rare enjoyment 

 to lie on one's back beneath these glorious trees and 

 look up, up, up their eighty or a hundred-foot trunks 

 into the depths of the glistening crowns, through 

 which the desert winds go blowing with the music 

 of rushing water. The sunlight is caught and 

 flashed from a hundred insect wings; birds come 

 and go intent on various ornithological errands, 

 singing as they fly ; and far away, twenty miles per- 

 haps, one sees as though afloat in the upper air the 

 snow fields lying cool on San Gorgonio's crest. 



In its wild estate, this palm is found only on the 

 western borders of the Colorado Desert, usually 

 in companies in or near the mouths of certain foot- 



