60 ETHNO-BOTANY OF THE CO AH VILLA INDIANS 



43. The variety of trees and shrubs of peculiarly desert character- 

 istics, which grow over the desert side of the mountains from bases to 

 summits and whose products are made by the Indian to yield food, 

 follow next in our description. 



The "ochotilla," or Fouquiera spinosa or splendcns, has already been 

 described. 1 It is a splendid example of desert modification, but its 

 anomalies make it difficult of classification. It grows in clumps on 

 the rocky ridge slopes near the base of the San Jacinto mountains. 

 The Coahuillas, who call it o-tos, eat its splendid crimson blossoms, 

 which cluster at the extreme end of its long, drooping branches, as well 

 as its small fruit, which consists of oblong capsules filled with minute 

 seeds. These branches, loaded as they are with thorns, are ingeniously 

 used by the Cocopah Indians far south in the Colorado desert of Baja 

 California in making fences. Two or three of these branches tied 

 above one another between posts makes a barrier through which the 

 most persistent burro will not pass. In this way the Indians inclose 

 many acres of soil, annually inundated by the overflow of Hardy's 

 Colorado river, and subsequently planted to maize, beans, and 

 melons. 



In the canon bottoms as they open out into the desert, grows quite 

 abundantly the "palo verde" (Parkinsonia Torreyana), which the 

 Coahuillas call o-o-wit. Its bright green bark and abundant, though 

 deciduous foliage, make it a handsome tree in the midst of its sur- 

 roundings. Its fruit is a slender bean, two to three inches long, which 

 the Coahuillas grind and cook into an atole. 



The Zizyphus Parry i, Torr., is a very spiny and intricately- 

 branched shrub, from five to fifteen feet high. It grows about the 

 springs in the higher parts of the canons, and bears a small yellowish 

 red berry or fruit, which is dry and almost hard. The Coahuillas call 

 this plant o-ot and use the fruit by pounding it into meal for atole. 



Besides the legumens already described there is a third, whose pod 

 furnishes food, though in somewhat sparse quantities. This is the 

 Acacia Greggii, Gray. In the San Felipe valley, below Warner's Ranch, 

 there is a great deal of it, and a considerable harvest of pods can be 

 gathered by the Indians of the valley. But it does not grow abun- 

 dantly in the territory of the Coahuillas and is only occasionally used. 

 It is called si-ching-al. 



Higher up on the mountains grow two species of wild plum or 

 cherry. One, the Prunus ilicifolia, Walp., has an extensive range 



1 Supra, p. 3. 



