USEFUL WILD PLANTS 



makin<i^ a fair substitute for molasses and corre- 

 spondingly good on bread or corn cakes. It is set 

 away for winter consumption.' The inner part of 

 the i)itahaya may also be sun-dried, and will then 

 keep for a long time. Sahuaro seeds are quite oily, 

 and I am told by Mr. E. H. Davis that the Papagos 

 dry them and grind them into an oleaginous paste, 

 which they spread like butter on their tortillas. The 

 ribs of this most useful plant are also employed by 

 these same Lidians as the basis of their stick-and- 

 mud houses — a practice doubtless inherited from the 

 ancients, as in many old cliff dwellings sahuaro ribs 

 are found reinforcing adobe. 



A word about one more desert fruit, and this 

 chapter closes. On the Colorado Desert of South- 

 eastern California, there is indigenous a stately palm 

 knowm as the California Fan Palm {Washingtonia 

 filifera, Wendl., var. rohusta), which has been widely 

 introduced into cultivation in the Southwest. In the 

 canons of the San Jacinto Mountains opening to the 

 desert and in the desert foothills of the San Bernar- 

 dino ^lountains, as w^ell as here and there in certain 

 alkaline oases of the desert itself, extensive groves 

 of this noble palm flourish — the remnant, it is 



T For an interesting and detailed account of the Arizona Sahuaro 

 harvest and uses, see Mr. Carl Lumholtz's "New Trails in Mexico." 



112 



