THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 



3 



1^: 



These trees have never beeen fired. Note the thatch of dead leaves. 



mountains of the desert stretch bands of unnamable, shifting 

 colors above the hot, white sands. So still is it that the flight 

 of a silent bird near by startles its, and our day dream broken, 

 we clamber down to the bed of the spring. 



The stout of limb may wander indefinitely beneath the 

 shadow of these palms, following the tortuous course of the 

 stream deep into the secret places of the mighty mountain. 

 Gray, water-beaten bowlders strew its bed and margins, 

 their surfaces pounded into smooth pockets and worn into 

 many a fantastic shape by the aqueous action of ages. With 

 the memory of the desert fresh upon us, it seems a heavenly 

 place by these crystal w^aters, now dropping in musical cas- 

 cades, now gathered in still pools reflecting their sedgy fringes ; 

 now^ flowing in open sunlight, now lost in quivering beds of 

 cattails and rushes and groundsel thickets. Wild flowers of 

 brilliant hue brighten the tiny, sandy beaches that form' here 

 and there in the shelter of great rocks — flowers of compelling 

 charm but so unknown to men that they are nameless except 



