21, Jan. , 2018
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Desert Trails
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Here Chase describes the quintessential Colorado Desert tree.
Chase's knowledge of trees, flora and fauna was formidable,
despite being mostly self taught; his first book ' Cone Bearing
Trees of California, ' is a good example, that stands up well
over 100 years later. He always tried though, to convey this
knowledge to his reader in simple, yet vivid and expressive
terms. He takes the opportunity as well, to express a gripe
while skewering the scientific ' tribe ' with his distinctive
humor. This reminds me of another grudge Chase expressed
in ' Yosemite Trails, ' about place names that is priceless and
will be shared in a forthcoming post.
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" The smoke-tree, Parosela spinosa, may hardly be called a tree, though
sometimes tree-like in size of stem. More common than the palo-verde,
it is always a strange and noticeable object. It, too, is leafless, but it is
wholly pale gray, a mass of prickly interlaced twigs that at a distance has
much the look of a cloud of smoke. It is the characteristic plant of the
desert ' washes ' or water-courses. I have often found the beds of these
fugitive streams filled for miles with this ghostly semblance of a river.
In some of them it grows so thickly as to form an apology for a forest,
though a forest of strange kind, and serpentine form. I have heard it
called the ' desert cedar ' also, thought it would be hard to imagine
anything less like the cedar than this spectral thing, blanched and
leafless.
The smoke-tree gives me occasion to voice an old grudge that I have
long held against the botanical tribe. Harmless, even kindly, as
botanists in general appear, how is it that they take delight in embittering
the lives of laymen by their eternal juggling with the names of genera and
species? If they really wish to discourage us poor ' popular ' chaps,
all right; let them say so and we can turn to something lighter, say
eugenics, or those frivolous things, ' conic sections. ' For many a year the
smoke-tree and its relatives were known to all the world as of the genus
Dalea. To-day the puzzled amateur finds that name tacked to a quite
different class of plants, and only by chance recognizes his old acquaintance
under the title of Parosela. When I hear of convocations of botanists I smile
and say, " This is no innocent convention, What are they up to now? "
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Smoke Tree, Santa Rosa range, near Indio CA
where Chase ventured, 100 years before.
photo by j. develyn
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for another lighthearted look at the whole naming issue
see ANN JAPENGA'S article below:
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