The White Mountains of California 283 



mon Desert Mahogany (Cercocarpus ledifolius) forms bands 

 on the ledges of the cafion walls up to altitudes of 7500 or 9000 

 feet. These shrubs have here a blue-green aspect, but of dark- 

 er tint than the blue rock ledges which they follow. 



At 8500 feet one leaves the Pinon and enters a zone of the 

 Limber Pine (Pinus aristata). Like every so-called forest in 

 a desert range of mountains it is very open. The trees are 

 mostly short and stocky, that is, twenty to forty feet in height, 

 sometimes fifty-five feet, with extreme trunk diameters of three 

 or four feet. The bark is a light-colored drab, with streaks of 

 black in the fissures. There is practically no underbrush, al- 

 though occasionally one finds a fine clump of Desert Spiraea* 

 (Chamaehatiaria millefolium). Leaving the forest the trail 

 leads for seven miles through a sagebrush association where 

 grow a number of interesting herbs, the Sego Lily, various 

 Eriogonums and Arenarias, a Silene and a Lupine. 



Just northeast of Big Prospector Meadow camp was made at 

 8300 feet, on the headwaters of North Fork Crooked Creek. 

 Springs in this range are very scarce, but we are fortunate in 

 having by the camp a fine spring pouring from the granite 

 rocks. 



After some days at this point I leave the remainder of the 

 party and start for the highest point in the range, White Moun- 

 tain Peak. I elect to trail along the sides of the range some 

 distance, instead of climbing at once to the axis. My way 

 leads over a low ridge north of the camp and down into and 

 along Poison Creek, through a luxuriant growth of Tall Lark- 

 spur and Selinum, a luxuriance contrasting strangely with the 

 scanty, or at least desert-like, vegetation of the mountain sides. 

 After two miles I turn to the right up a fork of the stream and 

 cross a low divide to a small tributary of Cottonwood Creek, 

 the main water channel of this region. 



One of the members of our party saw mountain lions a few 

 days ago at Cottonwood Creek, and as I proceed down the 

 tributary to the main stream I hope to glimpse one of the big 

 cats. Huge blocks of granite lie at right angles, often molded 

 into dome forms or semi-orderly structures. One looks up the 

 little lateral cafions as one passes up the main stream and sees 



* See Sierra Club Bulletin, vol. 9, p. 42, 191 3. 



