ITINERARY. V 



below Delta. It is a remarkable place. The top is well 

 watered, with many streams and beautiful lakes and with 

 rich forests and open parks. About the base lies the desert. 

 The Grand Mesa can be readily reached by a twenty-five 

 mile drive from Delta. 



Van Boxle's Ranch is twelve miles above Cimarron on 

 the headwaters of the Little Cimarron. One could scarcely 

 find a richer or more beautiful mountain locality than this, 

 surely not one more remote or less known. Splendid trout 

 fishing is not one of the least of the many attractions. 



Here should be detailed those plants which were observed 

 but for various reasons were not collected. The high spruce 

 woods were composed almost entirely of Picea Englemanni 

 and Pseudolsuga. Along the lower border of the spruce are 

 extensive thickets of quaking aspen, some of the trees often 

 reaching very good size. Here, also, in favorable places 

 bear berry (Arctostaphylos uva-ursi) is common. Through- 

 out the foothill and mountain country Alnus was frequent 

 along the streams, and the red-berried Sambucus was occa- 

 sional in the higher altitudes. The scrub oak thickets so 

 common in the foothill country have already been men- 

 tioned. Wet swales in the lower altitudes were usually 

 filled with Typha, and often contained colonies of Scirpus 

 occidentalis. One of the poison oaks (Rhus) was common 

 in the bottoms throughout the lower altitudes, but ex- 

 treme susceptibility, induced by a most troublesome expe- 

 rience in the swamps near Mobile, Alabama, led me to 

 give it a wide berth. Again cattle were seen browsing 

 it, apparently with relish. Helianthus petiolaris, Plantago 

 major, Salsola kali, Solanum nigrum, Xanthium strumarium, 

 Amarantus blitoides, and A. retroflexus, occurred on almost 

 all cultivated areas, along roads and railroads, and in rail- 

 road yards. In the Gunnison Valley the Russian Thistle 



