CHAPTER III 



TREES AND TREE-LIKE GROWTHS 



Flora's gifts to the desert — The palm — The two mesquits — 

 Nature's great benefaction — Deep-rooted mesquits — Cicadas — 

 A mesquit-clump camp — The Gambel quail — Beans for all — 

 The tree that bears screws — The palo verde, green but leafless 

 • — Laburnum of the desert — A desert Goliath — The smoke- 

 tree — A transformation — Complaint of a layman — The desert 

 willow — The ironwood : a desert forest — The affectionate cat- 

 claw — Desert mistletoe — A vegetable pirate, the Joshua tree — 

 The ocotillo, epitome of the desert — A miracle of blossoming — 

 The saguaro, giant of^ the cacti — An elf -owl hotel — Sunset and 

 the saguaro 



CONTRARY to the general notion, the desert 

 is far from being neglected by Flora. Even in 

 the matter of trees, she has denied to a few valuable 

 and interesting kinds the territory they would have 

 preferred, and has bestowed them on these unkind 

 regions, where they are a first-class boon to the 

 scanty animal life that shares their hardships. There 

 is a good assortment of shrubs too; and of the 

 smaller growths a surprisingly large number, though 

 it is only in spring that most of these show them- 

 selves. For the rest of the year they exist only in 

 embryo as seeds, or as a final minimum of brittle 

 stems and shrivelled leafage, making no contrast in 

 the universal drab, yet the hope and support of the 

 forlorn cattle that stray "with melancholy steps 

 and slow" about the parched and starving ranges. 

 Among the trees, the palm Washingtonia filifera 

 claims first place (though I always feel that the 

 name of tree hardly applies to those columnar shapes, 



