28 HOUGH'S AMERICAN WOODS. 



is excellent for fuel. It produces a valuable charcoal. The pods of the 

 Mesquit constitute a valuable article of food with the Indians and Mex- 

 icans, who grind or pound them into a flour and bake in cakes or loaves. 

 They also make a healthful beverage Mesquite Atole from the fresh 

 pods, and from the flour a weak beer. The pods are also eaten with 

 avidity by cattle, horses, etc. 



MEDICINAL PROPERTIES. Mesquite gum, which exudes from the stem 

 and branches in the form of amber-colored tears, is quite similar to the 

 gum Arabic in properties.* 



NOTE. The roots of the Mesquite, particularly the tap-root, penetrates 

 to a great depth, it is said even 40 or 50 ft. or more beneath the surface 

 of the soil, to a stratum of subsoil where moisture may be found, and 

 there spreads out in all directions. So constant is this that the size and 

 thriftiness of the tree, it is said, has been found to indicate the distance 

 down to the water, and the larger the tree the nearer the water is indi- 

 cated to be to the surface of the soil. 



The development of these roots is sometimes enormously out of pro- 

 portion to the size of the plant above ground, and they give the plant a 

 foothold and support which only can account for its maintenance of life, 

 on some of the drifting sand dunes and desert plains on which they are 

 found. Providentially these roots are of great utility in those localities, 

 where nothing else can be procured for fuel, as they are dug or hauled 

 out with teams for that use. 



ORDER ROSACEJE : ROSE FAMILY. 



Leaves alternate and with stipules which sometimes fall early or are rarely want- 

 ing. Flowers regular; sepals 5 or rarely fewer, united at the base and often fur- 

 nished outside with bractlets resembling the sepals; petals as many as the sepals, 

 or, rarely, wanting, distinct and inserted on a disk which lines the calyx-tube; stamens 

 distinct, numerous (with rare exceptions, and inserted with the petals on the disk of 

 the calyx -tube; pistils 1-many distinct or united and often combined with the calyx- 

 tube. Fruit various, as drupe, pome, acheniuni, etc. ; seeds solitary or few, mostly 

 albumenless, with straight embryo and large thick cotyledons. 



Trees, shrubs and herbs, many of great economic value in the production of most 

 useful fruits, beautiful flowers, choice perfumes, etc. 



GENUS CERCOCARPUS, HBK. 



Leaves alternate, simple, evergreen, coriaceous, entire or serrate, straight-veined, 

 short-petiolate; stipules very small and deciduous. Flowers perfect, small, axillary 

 or terminal, solitary or fascicled, sessile or nearly so; calyx with narrow, cylindrical 

 tube, and cup-shaped, 5-lobed, deciduous limb, lobes slightly imbricated; petals 

 none; stamens 15-30, inserted in two or three rows on the limb of the calyx, fila- 

 ments short, free, incurved in the bud; anthers oblong, usually pubescent, introse, 

 with cells distinct and opening longitudinally; pistil solitary, with single carpel, 

 with filiform style, minute terminal stigma and ovary included in the calyx-tube, 

 terete, acute, silky and containing a solitary anatropous ascending ovule attached 

 near the base. Fruit a coriaceous, linear-oblong, villose, acheniurn, included in the 



* U. 8. Dispensatory, 16th ed , p. 1857. 



