TO THE COCO-MARICOPA VILLAGES. 191 
are stiff and curling, and of a cream-white color. The 
stamens are yellow and very numerous. ‘The fruit 
is about the size and shape of an egg; sometimes 
rather longer than the true egg shape, having a few 
small scales, without spines. The color of the fruit is 
green tinged with red, when fully ripe. It consists of © 
an outer coat or skin filled with a red pulp, inclosing 
numerous small, black, smooth seeds. The fruit, when 
mature, bursts at the top and exposes the pulp, which at 
this time is rather mawkish to the taste; but a few 
days’ exposure to the sun dries it to about one third its 
original bulk, and the whole mass drops out of the 
skin. In this state it has the consistency of the pulp 
of a dried fig; and the saccharine matter being concen- 
trated by drying, it. somewhat resembles that fruit in 
taste. ‘The Pimo and other Indians, collect the pulp 
and roll it into balls; in which state it probably keeps 
the whole year, as it was offered to our party which 
passed through in January. They also boil the pulp 
in water, and evaporate it to the consistence of molas- 
ses; after which, it 1s preserved in earthen jars.* 
* It has been supposed that the petahaya was first made known by 
Major Emory in his Notes of a Military Reconnoisance, &c. in 1847: 
but I shall show that the plant is by no means new, and that it has been 
noticed by many of the earlier travellers in the region where it is found. 
In deseribing the plants of California, Venegas says, “The principal 
is the petahaya, the fruit of which forms the great harvest of the poor 
inhabitants here. This tree is not known in Europe, and differs from 
all other trees in the world: its branches are fluted and rise vertically 
from the stem, so as to form a very beautiful top; they are without 
leaves, the fruit growing to the boughs; the pulp resembles that of a 
fig, only more soft and luscious. In some it is white, in some red, and in 
others yellow, but always of an exquisite taste; some again are wholly 
