both the cactus and the palm. It is found nowhere save in the Mohave
Desert. It attains a height of thirty or forty feet, and the trunk,
often two or three feet in diameter, supports half a dozen irregular
branches, each tipped with a cluster of spine-like leaves. The
flowers, which are of a dingy white color, come out in March and last
until May, giving off a disagreeable odor. The fruit, however, which
is two or three inches long, is pulpy and agreeable, resembling a date
in flavor.

ARTHUR J. BURDICK,
in _The Mystic Mid-Region._



JULY 13 AND 14.


Throughout the coast region, except in the extreme north, this Live
Oak is the most common and characteristic tree of the Coast Range
valleys which it beautifies with low broad heads whose rounded
outlines are repeated in the soft curves of the foothills. Disposed in
open groves along the bases of low hills, fringing the rich lands
along creeks or scattered by hundreds or thousands over the fertile
valley floors, the eyes of the early Spanish explorers dwelt on the
thick foliage of the swelling crowns and read the fertility of the
land in these evergreen oaks which they called Encina. The chain of
Franciscan Missions corresponded closely to the general range of the
Live Oak although uniformly well within the margin of its geographical
limits both eastward and northward. The vast assemblage of oaks in the
Santa Clara Valley met the eyes of Portola, discoverer of San