30 MISC. CIRCULAR 31, U.S: DEPT. OF AGRICULTURE 
palms from Tulare south to Imperial, and of ornamental palms and 
palmettos in gardens all over the State, we are bound to acknowledge 
that our one native palm is the California palm (fig. 19), known also | 
as desert fan, or Washington palm. It is a beautiful, hardy thing. 
Its fruit is eaten by Indians (and who has a better right to the native 
fruits?), and it is said that generations ago the Indians of Palm 
Valley thatched their huts with the leaves. For most of us, how- 
ever, 1t is an ornamental tree, seen where it is native in the canyons 
opening into the Colorado Desert of the soatheastern part of 
the State—Palm Canyon, 
Lukens Canyon, Thousand 
Palms. Canyon, ete. ~ in 
these canyons it reaches a 
height of from 20 toe 7 
feet. Under cultivation it 
may do better than’ this. 
In Los Angeles are two 
great California palms 
that must be 100 feet 
high; they are said to have 
been planted by the: fa- 
thers 200 years ago. There 
is no need for a descrip- 
tion of California palm, 
with its plaited fans of 
circular leaves, its thorny- 
edged leafstalks, and its 
dead-drooping-leaf-clothed 
trunk, “ like a dirty apron 
tied over a silk gown,” as 
some one aptly said. But 
everyone who can take the 
time should certainly man- 
age a trip to Palm Canyon 
to see the tree in its native 
haunts. 
Probably the most wild- 
looking denizen of the 
desert hills and plains is 
the Joshua tree (fig. 20). 
Barats 243727 The keenly pointed bayo- 
FIGURE Be (Washingtonia - netlike leaves, bristling at 
the ends of big clumsy 
branches, defy intrusion and compel respect from. natural enemies. 
When from 3 to 6 feet high even the trunks are set with bristling 
leaves down to the ground and as the stem increases in length the 
first leaves grown begin to droop, finally dying and becoming closely 
appressed in a thatchlike covering about the trunk. The Joshua 
tree is one of the four yuccas native to the Pacific region and has 
been known to grow to a tree 54 feet high and 16 feet in circumfer- 
ence. It is found on the northern rim of the Mohave Desert, and 
a veritable forest of these trees may be seen along the road from 
Palmdale to Mohave. 
