has lasted 450,000 years, the last 25,000 representing our more rapid 

 intellectual advance from the Cro-Magnon and Brunn cultures of the 

 stone age to the present. 



A NEW PLANT RECORD FOR CALIFORNIA 



By RoxANA Stinchfield Ferris 



AS far as I am able to discover Holacantha emoryi has not been 

 listed from a California locality. It was my good fortune to 

 collect this curious shrub in a sandy wash on the highway, between 

 Needles and Barstow, eight miles from Ludlow in San Bernardino 

 county, where it was associated with Cassia armata. The charac- 

 teristic arborescent habit was not evident in the shrubs here, due 

 presumably to the fact that the low, interlaced branches served as a 

 windbrake to catch the sand and to pile it in mounds in much the 

 same fashion as the branches of the mesquite tree. 



The type locally of Holacantha is on the desert between the 

 Gila river and Tuscon. It is not rare in this region and in adjacent 

 Mexico, though it is never locally abundant. The natural habitat 

 appears to be shallow arroyos and drainage areas near the low desert 

 hills. I have also collected it on the Harquahala plains between 

 Hassayampa river and Parker in the northern part of Yuma county, 

 Arizona. 



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