1878. ] Rambles of a Botanist in New Mexico. 209 
thing but fuel. Another kind of white oak common on all the 
hill-sides near the plains is of a low but stout habit, showing a 
trunk a foot or two thick but rarely attaining a height of twenty 
feet. Its leaves are oblong in outline, small and of a rather 
leathery texture, not deciduous, but remaining on the tree until 
the appearing of the new ones in April. Emory’s oak (Q. emoryi 
Torr.) is a small but rather handsome tree. It has hitherto been 
erroneously classed with the white oaks, owing to the insufficient 
material brought in by the various explorers who had seen it; 
but it rarely takes rank among the blackest of the black oaks. 
Its bright-shining lance-shaped leaves remain green all winter, 
falling, like those of the species mentioned above, only when the 
new ones are appearing .in spring. The fourth species of the 
genus, found away upon the summits of the Santa Ritas (Q. Ayp- 
oleuca Engelm.), though a mere bush is very unique and pretty, ` 
with narrow laurel-like leaves which are dark and shining above, 
and on the under surface beautifully clothed with a fine dense- 
= white wool. The bush is perfectly evergreen. The black walnut. 
of the region (Fuglans rupestris Engelm.) is a small species with 
nuts differing from those of its eastern congener, though the 
wood is quite similar; but lumbermen rarely find a trunk of this 
walnut large enough to be sawn into boards. The pines, with 
the exception of the tall yellow pine (P. ponderosa Dougl.) which 
occurs rather sparingly on the more elevated mountains, are of 
the dwarf nut-bearing sorts (Pinus edulis Engelm., and P. chihua- 
_ hua Engelm.) called piñon by the Mexicans, of little value except 
for their oily and nutritious nut-like seeds. The very graceful 
willow-leaved cottonwood (Populus augustifolia James) frequents 
the banks of streams, makes a beautiful shade tree, is largely 
employed for that purpose on the streets of the young New Mexican 
towns, but is not otherwise very valuable. And here where oaks, 
pines and walnuts, the /arge trees of other countries, appear only — 
in the shape of dwarfs, the junipers, which in other regions are 
usually small, develop into trees of very respectable size. It 
Seems a favorite soil for junipers, for we meet here the leading 
“Species of the east (F. virginiana L.) and its ally of the Pacific 
coast ( F. occidentalis Hook. ), besides a fine species peculiar to the 
interior south-west, which is remarkably different from both 
AK pachyphlea Torr.). This is an oddity among junipers by — 
agi taipad of the dark red very fibrous bark common to most — 
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