4 



THE AxMERICAN BOTANIST 



in the harsh lexicon of science. For nearly two miles up the 

 canyon's bed the palms continue, sometimes standing scat- 

 tered or in single file, sometimes massed in considerable 

 groves, little families of thrifty seedlings clustered near them 

 and reaching up to the light and air through the matted debris 

 and driftwood that cradled them. Now and then a side gorge 

 opens into the main one. and looking along its rugged bed we 

 see more palms descending. 



The natural habit of the Washingtonia is not to shed its old 

 leaves, but to let them hang, fan downward, in the form of a 

 brown thatch protecting the bole from the fierce heat of the 

 desert summer. Normally, therefore, the tree's trunk is 

 clothed in dead leaves from the base, or nearly so, to the living 

 crown of green, and this is always the case with the younger 

 trees. It is a curious fact, however, that the trunks of the 

 old trees are invariably bare except for a short cluster of brown 

 foliage immediately beneath the green top, and the trunks 

 themselves are more or less charred and blackened. It appears 

 that this is the result of the firing of the trees by Indians, and 

 thereby hangs two tales. 



In the days before the advent of the whites, the red men 

 of the desert set great store by the palm as the source of food 

 supply. The fruit is a small, black, stony berry about the size 

 of a pea, borne in loose, pendant clusters not unlike bunches 

 o.f chicken grapes in appearance — and the Indians used regu- 

 larly to gather these berries, preparing a food from them by 

 grinding. It is maintained by some that the burning of the 

 dead leaves as they hung upon the trunks, was with the idea 

 that the fruitfulness of the trees was thereby increased, just 

 as blueberry patches in New England are often burned over 

 by white folk to improve that crop. There is, however, 

 another explanation of the charred palms. Under the old 

 order of aboriginal life, each grove was considered the property 

 of some one clan of the tribe ; and whenever a member of that 



