APPENDIX. 
CALIFORNIA COLLECTION. 
In the way of general considerations on the flora of our route in Cali- 
fornia, there is but little for me to say as a preface to this mere catalogue: 
first, because of the publication of the Botany of California. For the same 
reason I have excluded descriptions and kept this apart from the body of my 
report. American botanists have reason to congratulate the authors and 
themselves on the probable early completion of that great work. Second, 
because, upon the essential facts of the history of botany there, Prof. D. 
C. Eaton has dwelt in the preface to his article on the Ferns of the South- 
west, which forms a most valuable addition to this volume; and, third, 
because the important facts, so far as observed by us, have been already 
published in the Report of this Survey for 1876. 
There are, however, a few facts to which it might be well to allude: 
and the first one is the marked change which occurs in the character of the 
arborescent vegetation as we go north from Walker’s Basin along the Kern 
River Valley and up the South Fork of that stream. After passing Havi- 
lah (a few miles north of Walker’s Basin), no oak trees were seen along our 
route to the base of Fisherman’s Peak, until, on the return trip, we reached 
the Soda Spring on the North Fork of Kern River. Here they again 
appeared, and as we moved south toward Deer Creek and Linn’s Valley 
they became common, until in the last-named region they were more abun- 
dant in the lower grounds than the coniferous vegetation, which had hitherto 
given exclusive character to the landscape. 
It was further worthy of note that no Sequoia gigantea was seen on 
the eastern side of the North Fork of Kern River or anywhere on the 
South Fork, though situations were frequently noted at which, so far as 
the ordinary physical conditions of soil, exposure, etc., were concerned, 
it might have been expected, especially so as it is now well known to be 
common on the western slope of valleys drained by the headwaters of 
23 BOT 253 
