162 RESOURCES OF CALIFORNIA. 
from two to six, which are about half the thickness of the 
trunk; they run out horizontally for a foot or two, and then 
turn upward and rise parallel with the trunk. There are no 
twigs or leaves, but flowers and fruit grow on the tops of the 
trunk and branches. The whole plant resembles a huge can- 
delabrum. The flowers are three inches long, as wide, with 
stiff, curling, and cream-colored petals. The fruit is as large 
as a hen’s egg, and the meat is a red pulp, full of little seeds. 
The taste is insipid; but when the fruit is dried, according to 
the Indian custom, it acquires a flavor somewhat like that of 
a fig. 
§ 80. Yucca.—The yucca, or bayonet-tree, is a kind of palm, 
—an endogenous tree that lives in the southern deserts. It 
sometimes grows to be thirty-five feet in height, with a trunk 
two feet through; but usually it is about ten feet high, with a 
trunk eight inches in diameter. It has no twigs or branches, 
but sometimes it divides into two trunks. The foliage, con- 
sisting of leaves eighteen inches long, and shaped like the 
blade of a bayonet, hangs down from the tops of the trunks. 
§ 81. Mezquit—The mezquit (Algarobia glandulosa) is a 
low tree of the Colorado Desert. It sometimes reaches a 
height of twenty feet, with a trunk fifteen inches in diameter. 
The lower branches are very near the ground, and the whole 
tree has a very regular, semispherical form. The leaves are 
like those of the black locust, and the foliage thin. The tree 
bears numerous pods, from three to five inches long, full of 
sweet, nourishing beans, about the size of the common white 
bean. The mezquit-bean is often eaten by men, and horses 
and mules are very fond of it. 
The curly mezquit (Strombocarpus pubescens) is a similar 
shrub, and bears a crooked bean, called the ‘“‘screw-bean.” It 
also grows only on the desert. ; 
§ 82. Miscellaneous Trees and Shrubs.—A few walnut-trees 
grow along the Sacramento River, and it is said that some 
chestnuts have been found in Mendocino county, but they are 
unknown in the greater part of the state. We have no indi- 
