874 Sotol. [ November, 
It may be seen that this description differs from that of authors 
in some particulars, such as the absence of any conspicuous cau- 
dex, the larger size of the leaves and hooks, and the variable 
degree of adnation of the wings to the style in the fruit. 
The bear-grass produces a fructiferous stem every three or four 
years, when sufficient material has been accumulated in the suc- 
culent leaves. It is mainly propagated by seeds shaken off their 
stately support by the wind and carried away in various direc- 
tions; the young plant grows rapidly and shoots its first stem 
when four or five years old. It blossoms late in summer and 
the seeds ripen in the fall; most of them remain on the stalk all 
winter, and many persist until late in the ensuing year. 
Habitat.—The home of the sotol is Western Texas, South- 
eastern New Mexico and Northern Chihuahua. Proceeding 
westward from San Antonio, I first met it after crossing the San 
Pedro or Devil’s river; beyond the Rio Pecos it becomes abun- 
dant, covering almost exclusively square miles of arid aad stony 
slopes, beyond question the most striking botanical feature of ne 
country. It extends west, probably to the Colorado. If specifi- 
cally it includes the D. wheeler’ Watson, it is the prevalent Dasy- 
lirion of Southern Arizona. 
The sotol grows best at a certain altitude, five or six hundred 
feet above the level of the Rio Grande, that is to say, above the 
region of the Yucca baccata and the lower line of the Agave 
lechuguilla, on nearly all the foot-hills of Western Texas. It 
thrives in dry, rocky soil where no grass can grow, and some- 
times, insinuating its long, filamentous roots into invisible fissures, 
seems to spring from the living rock. | 
Uses.—The first experience of the traveler with the bear-grass 
whose hooks scratch and tear everything they touch, is a disagree” 
able one; but further acquaintance with frontier life makes him : 
consider it one of the beneficent provisions of nature. In some 
of our camps, where other fuel could not be procured, we made 
good fires of the old stems of this plant. These are sufficiently 
strong and long for use in building the walls and roofs of waren 
Mexican jacals. As a fiber plant the sotol is worthless; even #! 
were possible, with the defiant hooks, to scrape off the fibers, maid 
are too few and weak to be serviceable. : E me 
The base of the leaves and the young stems are full of a ee a 
_Tefreshing and nourishing saccharine matter which supplies mae 
