58 ETHNO-BOTANY OF THE CO AH VILLA INDIANS 



the canons, by which one begins an ascent, to the summits, where the 

 character of living things suddenly changes, plants and shrubs are met 

 everywhere, growing amid the broken rocks. Curious cacti cover a 

 hillside with an armament of spines, and small annuals dot the sandy 

 levels along the bottoms of the gorges. So it is to these arid but 

 fruitful slopes that the women of the desert plain and the mountain 

 valley both go for food. 



Most remarkable of all the plants that flourish in these wastes is 

 the agave, perhaps the most unique and interesting plant of all Amer- 

 ica. It ranges widely throughout southwestern United States and 

 Mexico with a large number of species, perhaps one hundred in all ; 

 and outside of Mexico, where it furnishes "pulque" and "vino mescal," 

 it is used for food by Apaches, the Pah Ute family, and desert tribes 

 in general. By all these Indians it is prepared for food in much the 

 same way. Several species have become familiar, as the " century 

 plants" of California gardens, but they are not handsome plants, 

 except when in bloom, though they give themselves most beautifully 

 to the wants of the Indian. 



The life history of all these species is much the same. They come 

 up in little round heads or cabbages. For years this head enlarges, 

 throwing out fibrous leaves armed with a spine at the point. Even in 

 the hot air of the desert it is twelve to fifteen years before the period 

 of flowering is reached. Then from the center of the plant there starts 

 up a stalk, growing with great rapidity. In the larger species this 

 stalk may be twenty to thirty feet high and eighteen inches through at 

 the base. From this stalk clusters of pale yellow blossoms, thousands 

 in number, open in the hot, quivering sunshine. This supreme act 

 ends the life of the plant. 



Within the territory of the Coahuillas there is but a single species, 

 the Agave deserti, Engelm., which grows abundantly along the eastern 

 base of the coast ranges in San Diego county, and southward into Baja 

 California. It was first discovered by Lieutenant W. H. Emory, of the 

 Mexican Boundary Survey, in 1846.* It is a small species with leaves 

 densely clustered, thick and deeply concave, only six to twelve inches 

 long. The scape or stalk is from ten to twelve feet high and slender. 

 The flowers are a bright yellow. From April on, the cabbages and 

 stalks are full of sap and are then roasted. Parties go down from the 

 mountain villages into Coyote canon for the purpose. Great fire pits 

 or ovens, called na-chish-em, are dug in the sands and lined with 



i Geological Survey of California, Botany, Vol. II, p. 142. 



