556 AMERICAN FOREST TREES 



of ten indies when at its best. The wood is pale yellow tinged with 

 green, and, because of small size, is of little importance. 



PALO VERDE (Cercidium torreyanum) sheds its leaves and its pods 

 so early in the season that its branches are bare most of the year. Trees 

 are from fifteen to thirty feet high, and some are considerably more than 

 a foot in diameter. Its range covers a portion of southern California, 

 the lower part of the Gila valley in Arizona, and extends southward into 

 Mexico. It is a typical tree of the desert, and its extreme poverty of 

 foliage enables it to live in a dry, hot climate. It clings to the sides of 

 desert gulches and canyons, ekes out a dreary life in depressions among 

 desolate dunes and hills of sand and gravel, and spends its allotted period 

 of years in solitude, growing either singly or in small groups where the 

 full foliage at the best time of year is insufficient to offer much obstruc- 

 tion to the full glare of the sun from a cloudless sky. The small flowers 

 have little beauty or sweetness, but what they have is wasted on the 

 desert air. Wayfarers in the barren country use the wood for camp 

 fires. 



INDIGO THORN (Dalea spinosd) receives its name from the color of its flowers 

 which appear in June. The tree has few leaves and they fall in a short time. This 

 appears to be a provision of nature to enable the tree to endure the heat and dryness 

 of its desert home. Its range covers the lower Gila valley in Arizona, and extends into 

 the Colorado desert in southern California. It is not abundant, and if it were, it is 

 of a size so small that it is practically valueless for commercial purposes. Some trees 

 are a foot in diameter and twenty feet high. The wood is light, soft, and of a rich 

 chocolate-brown color. It is known also as indigo bush and dalea. 



EYSENHARDTIA (Eysenhardtia orthocarpd) is so little known that it has no 

 English name. It grows from western Texas to southern Arizona, but reaches tree 

 size only near the summit of Santa Catalina mountains in Arizona where it is twenty 

 feet or less in height and seldom more than eight inches in diameter. It inhabits an 

 arid region, and bears fruit sparingly, with usually a single seed in a pod. The wood 

 is heavy and hard, light reddish-brown in color, with thin yellow sap. It is not of 

 commercial importance and probably never will be. 



