MOUNTAIN MAHOGANY (Cercocarfusbeluloides^uit.). This 

 is a shrub or small tree, under best conditions 20 ieet or so 

 high, but sometimes only 2 or 3 feet, distinguished by its small, 

 wedge-shaped leaves, distinctly veined, and small solitary or 

 clustered, apetalous, whitish flowers, each resembling a little 

 cup full of stamens. After flowering the seed vessel develops 

 in early summer a conspicuous, feathery, curling tail, two or 

 three inches long, enclosed in -a tubular case- a characteristic 

 feature of the plant. Blooming in March or April, and com- 

 mon in the chaparral belt of the mountains from Southern 

 California nearly to the Oregon line. 



Botanists make numerous species of Mountain Mahogany, 

 and, while the botanical distinctions are in many cases diffi- 

 cult to fix, there is a sufficient general similarity among all 

 to make the genus of easy recognition. The wood is remark- 

 able for its extreme hardness, a character to which the com- 

 mon name is owing. Out of it, in default of iron, the Indians 

 made many of their implements, such as digging sticks for 

 grubbing up edible bulbs, mescal sticks for cutting out the 

 buds of the agave, fish-spears, arrow-tips, and so on. 



The feathery tailed seeds when mature are loose in their 

 tubes, and are easily lifted by the wind and scattered. 

 90 



