FOOD PLANTS OF THE COAHUILLA INDIANS 57 



Along the overflowed banks of the New river, and elsewhere about 

 the desert's edge, where cloudbursts or freshets send their sudden 

 streams of muddy water out over the sand, there grows up luxuriantly an 

 enormous species of Chenopodium. In the New river country I have 

 seen the growth higher than a man's head as he sat on horseback. 

 The stalks are sometimes six inches in diameter. The leaves are eaten 

 readily by horses, and the plant is of much value to parties crossing 

 the desert and to stockmen. Its local name is " careless weed." The 

 seeds are eaten by the Indians and the leaves used for greens. North- 

 ward, in the Cabeson and Coyote, a smaller and probably distinct 

 species, identified by Mr. Jepson as Chenopodium Fremontii, flourishes 

 after freshets. Its dry branches are covered with seeds which are gath- 

 ered by the Indians in large quantities, and ground into flour which is 

 baked into little cakes. The Coahuillas call the plant kit or ke-et. 

 After a good harvest of this Chenopodium the edge of the Coyote 

 canon will be fringed with granaries holding stores of this food. 



Another queer little plant that starts up after storm, irrigation is 

 the Salicornia subterminalia. Its structure is pulpy and almost leafless. 

 I once found it growing abundantly about Indian Wells. The Coa- 

 huillas call this plant hd-at, and formerly used its seeds for food. These 

 seeds were crushed finely into meal on a metate. 



42. The most varied stores of food, however, do not come from 

 the fluviatile plain of the Colorado, but from the forbidding moun- 

 tains that rise high and abruptly on the westward. The character of 

 these ranges has already been partially noted. Their sides are very 

 steep. There are no ranges of foothills or graduated ascents. From 

 the level of the sea at Palm Springs, San Jacinto rises almost sheer 

 upward to a height of 1,100 feet. Only by certain canons can these 

 mountains be ascended, even by foot climbers. The Ta-quitch canon 

 that enters Palm Valley is said to be insurmountable. Partly because 

 of this precipitancy and partly because grass and protective foliage are 

 wholly absent, there is little opportunity for soil formation on the 

 desert side. The fragments of rock and soil are swept away and depos- 

 ited in the great alluvial fans that clog for miles the foot of the canons. 



Nevertheless, the mountains support a bewildering variety of plant 

 life. Nowhere could the relationship of plants to their surroundings 

 be more copiously illustrated. While numbers are few and growth is 

 sparse, the species are very numerous. Most of these plants grow in 

 clumps or communities, and afford illustration of the cooperation and 

 mutual support compelled by the desert. From the lower levels of 



