File:The mystic mid-region, the deserts of the Southwest (1904) (14781700355).jpg

Identifier: mysticmidregiond00burd (find matches)
Title: The mystic mid-region, the deserts of the Southwest
Year: 1904 (1900s)
Authors: Burdick, Arthur J. (Arthur Jerome), 1858-
Subjects: Deserts Southwest, New -- Description and travel
Publisher: New York, London, G.P. Putnam's Sons

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s frame is of great value to thedesert Indians or to desert travelers who knowits properties. The fascicles make excellentfirewood, and when cut into required lengthsthey are used as pickets with which to buildcorrals, and for the roofs to the adobe huts.The spines of the plant are also used by theIndians as combs. The plant lives to be morethan one hundred and fifty years old,as has beendetermined by counting the layers of growth. The first flowers appear when the plant hasattained a height of eight or ten feet, andthey come into bloom early in May and con-tinue in blossom till near the middle of June.The blossoms are large, white, and waxy.The flowers are borne in the axils of thebunches of spines, often fifty or more blossomsin the summit of a single branch. It comes tofruit in August, and then it is that the Indiansride from plant to plant and with long polesdetach the fruit, which is gathered and pre-served as food or is made into an intoxicatingdrink of which they are very fond.
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r.lpli liy C. C. IlLT. c .V I. SPANISH BAYONET 43 Curious Desert Plants 45 Another plant, a species of yucca, abundantin the southern deserts, is the Spanisli ba)onet.These plants have a thick, palm-like stem ortrunk with long, thick, spine-pointed leaves.The floweriuL^ stem shoots up many feet inheight and bears myriads of white, showy,panicled flowers, lil)-like in appearance. Asmany as six thousand blossoms have beenobserved upon a single plant. An interesting peculiarity of this plant isthat it cannot pollenize itself, but is obliged todepend for its perpetuity upon a little mothwhose sole aim in life seems to be to performthe work of pollenizing this plant. This mothdoes not eat the honey or pollen of the plant,l)ut lays her eggs upon the stigma of the flowerand then gathers the pollen of the blossomand deposits it over the eggs, thus protectingthe eggs and pollenizing the plant at the sametime. The larvce hatch at the time that theflower goes into seed, and the grubs feastupon t

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