Vol. VII. DECEMBER, 1890. Whole No. 55. 



PARRY'S LOTUS TREE. 



(From the Mining and Scientific Press, liii, 391.) 



The trees around them all their food produce, 

 Loins their name divine — nectareous juice ! 

 Hence Lotophagi called, which who so tastes 

 Insatiate riots in their sweet repasts, 

 Nor other home, nor other care intends, 

 But quits his house, his country and his friends. 



Homer's Odyssey. 



Although mention is made of this native fruit (Zizyphus Par- 

 ryi) in the California State Board of Forestry's catalogue of trees 

 and shrubs desirable for culture, nevertheless such a compiled 

 list must needs be very brief to come within due limits assigned, 

 hence further details may become desirable. 



Common perception recognizes the truism that where native 

 families, genera and species of trees, shrubs and plants abound, 

 they furnish the best presumptive evidence — it not always proof — 

 that other kindred and choicer sorts will suit similar situations, 

 climatic conditions and soils, often vastly widening in their range. 



With our intelligent culturists and nurserymen, it seems need- 

 less to urge that the almost universally preferred practice is to 

 resort to the wilds for the strongest seedlings as stocks for pro- 

 pagating purposes. Therefore, with this in view, we offer a 

 short description, with pen and ink sketch, of our own native 

 lotus, in order to facilitate ready recognition and to designate 

 the best known localities for procurement of the seed supply. 

 Withal summary suggestions of a few foreign sorts that might 

 well supersede the native jujube, and here and there intersperse 

 a practical hint or so to profit, or of economic and commercial 

 value. 



Parry's Lotus or Jujube is a zigzag, branching, thorny bush 

 or small tree, four to sixteen leet high, seldom over four to six 

 inches in diameter. The leafy spines are long, stout and straight, 

 leaves entire and small — less than one inch — blunt or notched at 

 the top^ wedge-shaped, narrowing into a slender, short leaf- 

 stem, one to three flowers, recurved in fruits, and this one 

 to three seeded, mealy and nearly dry, oval, one-half to 

 three-fourths of an inch long, apex short-pointed on a curved 

 stem of one-half an inch or so in length. Mostly a shrub well 

 suited for more eminently useful hedges; abounds in gravelly 

 ravines near San Felipe, San Diego county, also at Rock House 

 summit, of the same region, and east of San Bernardino, Cali- 

 fornia. 



Before inviting specific attention to the most commendable 

 species for culture it seems requisite to make a few concise re- 

 marks on jujubes in general; for out of half a hundred or more 

 we can now refer to only a few. Jujubes are among the most 

 feasible, if not the best of fruits in the world for jellies and vari- 

 ous preserves, or dried, and for a sort, of bread or cakes, pies, 



