BOTANY. 373 



rises to a height of eight feet, and is abundant in the southern 

 counties, are indigenous in the State. 



297. Swamp Vegetation. The swamp lands of Califor- 

 nia abound with reeds, or tule as they are here called. The 

 round tule, (Scirpus lacustris) the principal species, has no 

 leaf, but a plain, round stalk, sometimes an inch thick at the 

 butt, and fifteen feet high, but usually not more than half so 

 large. It will grow in places constantly covered with water 

 several feet deep, forms a thick mat with its roots, and cannot 

 be killed readily. 



The triangular tule grows in shallower water, or in land dry 

 for portions of the year, and neat cattle get fat on it. 



The cat-tail flag grows with, the tule, but in drier land than 

 the others, and can be killed out with less difficulty. The 

 stalks are used by coopers to put between the staves in their 

 casks, and the fiber of the flower or cat-tail has been gathered 

 for mattresses and pillows. 



298. Marine Vegetation. The ocean near the shore 

 from the Golden Gate, southward, has a great variety of algae 

 or sea-weed, some of which are very beautiful in the delicacy 

 of their forms and the delicate tints of their covering. These 

 are extensively used for ornamental purposes. Others, like 

 the Macrocystis pyrifera, have stems of great length, occa- 

 sionally reaching two hundred yards, grow from a depth of 

 forty feet, and present such a mass of foliage in the water as 

 to perceptibly impede navigation. The larger species of algaa 

 are especially abundant off the coast of Santa Barbara County. 



299. Alpine Vegetation. The vegetation on the Califor- 

 nian Alps is peculiar. Both grasses and trees are abundant at 

 elevations much above those in which they flourish in Switz- 

 erland. There the trees reach to 6,500 feet above the sea, 

 here to 11,000 feet. There, no tree lives where snow lies 

 through the year ; here, two species flourish 1 ,000 feet above 

 the snow line ; and five species that reach a diameter of three 

 feet in the trunk grow at places where the temperature is be- 



