June io, 1896.] 



Garden and Forest. 



233 



still more that she should make them so that we literally 

 class them with the mighty Redwood and Sequoia. People 

 who associate strange properties with strange appearances 

 ascribe all sorts of remedial effects to these plants. Most of 

 those are without real foundation. The largest and most pecu- 

 liar of our species, Ephedra trifurca, is very common round 

 El Paso on the mountain and on the mesas. This species 

 sometimes makes itself into a neat little miniature tree, 

 with a clean trunk fifteen to twenty inches long, two to 

 three inches in diameter, and with a round and symmet- 

 rical head of branches. People about El Paso and in New 

 Mexico call this species the " Brigham Young Weed." 



Larrea tridentata (L. Mexican a) is by far the commonest 

 shrub in this locality among the hills. A bath in a warm 

 infusion of its leaves and twigs is said to be a remedy for 

 rheumatism. In this region plants that depend on rain for 

 their growth have become very easy and slack in their 

 manners and observe no set time to flower and fruit. On 

 the thirteenth day of June the hills around El Paso were 

 yellow with flowers of Larrea. Three weeks of rainless 

 weather followed, and the thousands of individuals of that 

 species showed hardly a flower. Other rains came, and in 

 a few days the hills were again yellow with a new crop of 

 flowers. 



Western Texas is full of plant wonders, and no plant here 

 is more peculiar and attractive in its own way than the Screw 

 Bean, Prosopis pubescens. As a shrub this species outdoes 

 its reputed cousin Mesquit, P. juliflora, but the latter far 

 excels the former as a tree. The fruit of the Screw Bean, 

 as its nickname indicates, is a departure in fruit forms, and 

 readily shows the species. Its short, clustered pods are 

 twisted into screw-like coils and again coiled. In the future 

 some daring botanist will again separate generically P. pu- 

 bescens from P. juliflora, whose pods, though clustered, are 

 straight and sometimes eight to twelve inches long and con- 

 taining from six or less to twenty-four or more beans. 

 Uniting these species under thesame genus was a complete 

 waiver of the form of the fruit as a generic character. 



Euphorbia Fendleri, E. lata and other rare species of that 

 genus grow on the mountain, with several Erigonums, 

 Galiums, a large-fruited Yucca, a strange shrub, and other 



species. 



La Junta, Colo. 



E. N. Plank. 



The Flora of the California Coast Range. — III. 



CUPRESSUS MACNABIANA AT HOME. 



SIX miles south-east of Ukiah is Red Mountain, and its 

 bold dome, rising 2,300 feet above the sea, is visible 

 from almost any point in the thirty miles of valley which 

 stretches north and south from its base. It is easily dis- 

 tinguished from the surrounding mountains of nearly as 

 great an altitude, by the brick-red soil on all exposed 

 places, which shows enough even in the brushy portions 

 to warrant the name. It is a great mass torn from some 

 other geological formation and set down in a great chain 

 of chemise-covered mountains. It differs from its neigh- 

 bors no less in flowers and trees than in soil, and is a fine 

 example of these isolated sections which are a feature of 

 our state. Forty miles to the east, across two higher 

 ranges, is a region in which the geological conditions and 

 flora which distinguish Red Mountain are reproduced on a 

 greater scale. The mountain is almost completely detached 

 from the main range by a stream which, rising on the north- 

 west face, completely encircles and drains the mountain. 



The eastern side of Red Mountain is covered with the 

 most curious forest I have ever seen. A body of Cupressus 

 Macnabiana, about a half-mile square, and scarcely mixed 

 with any other tree, covers it completely. The trees are 

 only from twelve to twenty feet high, as a rule, but, like 

 the miniature trees of the Japanese gardeners, they have all 

 of the appearance of great age. Old and gnarled, tough 

 and twisted, covered with moss, and with limbs broken, 

 they look like the old forests of Cedar of Lebanon as they 

 are pictured. A forest a hundred feet high, looked at 



through the large end of a telescope, would give the same 

 impression. A fire has swept through one side, and the old 

 trunks, standing black and naked, aid the deception. Only 

 the surrounding objects by which to aid the sight, keep 

 one from being quite carried away by the deception. These 

 trees, dwarfed so strangely by the arid soil and bleak cli- 

 mate, are very old. 



The west face of the mountain is no less curious. Here 

 the Cypress forms a dense thicket, from six or eight feet 

 high in the open hills, to fifteen feet high in the gullies, and 

 stretching over the whole mountain-side till it breaks into 

 cliffs at the canon. Where the fires have burned over, the 

 little seedlings, are coming up, but in no such profusion as 

 I saw in the thickets of Cupressus on the coast. Here, at 

 the most, there would be one tree in three or four feet. 

 The little seedlings having the soil to themselves, are of a 

 fine green and quite shapely, and many grow into hand- 

 some trees. A few seeds carried down the stream to grav- 

 elly flats in the valley have formed an open grove of 

 specimens as handsome as any in a park of perfect pyra- 

 midal form and very broad at base. Handsomer trees are 

 seldom seen. 



Many of the lesser shrubs and flowers are quite as dis- 

 tinctive of Red Mountain as the Cypress. One Ceanothus 

 in particular I have never observed except in such soils. 

 It is much like a Holly in leaf, and forms a low bush. The 

 flowers are white. The stream which flows down the east 

 side has a broad bed heavily grown with a coarse grass 

 which retains the soil and furnishes a home for many flow- 

 ering plants. For fully a half-mile Lilium pardalinum, in 

 a large spotted form, grows in abundance and forms great 

 clumps. As I have seen it in July, the stem four to seven 

 feet high and the canon fairly filled with a wavy mass of the 

 grand recurved red and gold blossoms, I thought it the 

 finest floral sight I had ever seen. Our common Colum- 

 bine, Aquilegia truncata, is a fine plant and the parent of 

 some good garden plants. It flowers in May and June. In 

 the grass and on the wet rocks of the numerous little falls 

 a form with viscid leaves grows in profusion, and, unlike 

 the type, blooms constantly through the summer season. 

 The flowers are more of an orange color than the type. A 

 variety of Stachys, with tomentose leaves and a pleasant 

 fragrance, is almost as common, and in the wettest places 

 one can see large beds of an Orchid much like a small pur- 

 ple and brown Lady's slipper. This is Epipactis gigantea, 

 a pretty species well worth cultivation. A large clump 

 graces my Fern-bed, and rapidly increases, blooming freely 

 every year. 



Few Ferns grow here, but a Pellsea (P. densa) is abun- 

 dant in the loose rock which has broken from the cliffs 

 above, and in the rock crevices as well. It grows in large 

 bunches, and the small dissected fronds are quite hand- 

 some when the winter rains wake them from the long 

 summer sleep ; very delicate, too, the light green new 

 growth resembling a Maiden-hair. Calycanthus occiden- 

 talis is not uncommon in the Coast Range and is one of 

 our finest waterside shrubs. It is rather prettier than the 

 eastern C. floridus, and, like it, the bark, leaf and fleshy 

 chocolate-colored flowers have a pleasant odor. It espe- 

 cially likes the clayey soil of this canon, and in some local- 

 ities the growth is ten to twelve feet high and completely 

 fills the gulch. In clefts of the rock a rare Brodia>a grows 

 quite out of its range, for it is common forty miles east- 

 ward. The flowers are white, and it prefers the courses of 

 streams. 



The higher slopes are also rich in rare plants. One of 

 the most attractive is Dendromecon rigidum, a shrub from 

 two to eight feet high, slender, with light lance-shaped 

 leaves and a blossom almost exactly like a light-colored 

 Californian Poppy, except in size. This beautiful Tree 

 Poppy in our region is confined to high altitudes. A well- 

 developed bush is not soon to be forgotten. Morning 

 Glories are everywhere in our state. A very common one 

 with good-sized white flowers grows in grain fields and is 

 a troublesome weed, pretty as it is. Red Mountain, in 



