16 
county and Mariposa county, but no records southward 
have been made. Probably it is most abundant in the 
Coast Ranges from Napa county to Mendocino county. — 
W. L. Jepson. 
SMILO GRASS. 
Oryzopsis miliacea, indigenous to Europe, is a new 
and very promising dry-land perennial forage grass. A 
common name was wanted and I suggested San Diego 
Grass as a good name. The promoter advertised it as 
Smilo Grass, '‘because any cow would smile to see it.” 
The name is objectionable, being too much like Milo, 
but this is a case where a pure invention has caught on. 
The name Smilo is everywhere now and you can’t stop 
it. — P. B. Kennedy. 
SAN CARPOFORO CANON TO THE NACIMIENTO 
RIVER. 
An hour more of rough going brought us to a wide 
glade wooded with oaks of unusual sizp and beauty. 
They were the great valley oak of California, the roble 
of the Spaniards. The species was well known to me, 
but nowhere else have I seen it reach the stateliness 
of these superb trees. The huge white trunks and 
fountain-like flow of branches had a sort of Greek per- 
fection, and one, could easily understand why, if Greece 
had such oaks as these they were held sacred to Zeus. 
Here were the remains of a house, and I searched again 
for water, for I was getting pretty thirsty. But the 
cracked troughs in the old corral gave notice that I need 
not expect to find any, and seemed to hint at the reason 
for the abandonment of this handsome homestead. 
A short distance beyond this place the trail emerged 
at a divide, and I saw with relief the canon of the 
Nacimiento lying below, with one pool of blue water 
shining among its sun-bleached boulders. The opposite 
wall was a high, perpendicular bluff of purple-red rock, 
barren except for a few spectral digger pines that grew 
in crannies, or leaned in languid attitudes on the sum- 
mit. It was an unusual landscape and one worthy of 
particular notice, but I was too tired and thirsty to 
enjoy it, and hurried on to get down to the stream. — 
Smeaton Chase, Coast Trails, p. 174. 
