BOTANICAL INDEX 
17 
CURIOUS FORMS OF BOTANY IN SOUTHERN UTAH. 
— 
BY J. E. JOHNSON, ST. GEORGE, UTAH. 
FIRST PAPER. 
f|ATURE is prolific in giving forms strange and varied, in the various altitudes 
of our mountain climes, and more especially so here, on the partition line, 
between the heat and cold, so to speak. In our lowest valleys the summer 
heat raises the mercury for months from 95 to 110° Farhenheit; and from 
thence one may ride in a day to streams in the mountains, where a harvest 
of crystal ice may be gathered. 
Tlius the botany of the antipodes of cold and heat are blended, and vegetable 
forms congenial to various temperatures become blended and curiously “ mixed ” and 
deeply interesting to the lovers of nature. For fourteen years I have watched and 
studied this page of nature’s volume, and spent many pleasant hours at the various 
seasons of the year, alone and with others, who have visited this region for scien- 
tific research. And thinking it possible that some of your readers might also be in- 
terested in learning something of our native botany, l will attempt a plain and hur- 
ried description of a few of our most notable forms. The family of Cactus and Yucca 
will especially be noted in this, and first 
CERECS LE CONTEI, 
The most magnificent, is found among the scoriae and sand-rocks on the declivities 
of our mountains, with southern exposure along the Rio Virgen, and grows from 
one to four feet high and is known among the settlers as “ The Nail Keg,” or ‘‘Devil’s 
Bee-hive; ” is twelve to sixteen inches in diameter, and in the dist: nee resembles a 
stump, with smooth rounded head, but on near approach it is bristling with straight 
and curved spines, often four inches in length and a sharp point. It is furrowed or 
ribbed perpendicularly, thus forming depressions an inch or more in depth, the 
spines forming clusters of rows, in close proximity from ground to top on the outer 
