![]() "n important contribution to the botany of the North American desert realms. The descriptive species accounts include common names, indigenous names, and synonyms, detailed botanical descriptions, ecological and geographic data, geographic ranges, natural history, economicuses, and, in many cases, other information such as horticultural uses and conservation status. Two hundred eighty-five species of native and naturalized trees are covered,featuring extensive identification keys and illustrations, most of them newly produced for this book. The introductory chapter contains biotic and climatic information and an analysis of the geographical distributions of the trees of a state that is poorly known biologically. ![]() Felger is the recognized expert in the area, and the book contains an enormousbody of information nowhere else obtainable. Thus, this book will be important to biologists in regions well outside of the area covered. The majority ofthe trees in this semi-arid region are at their northern limits in the Americas in this state and many range to South America. Then, when even the blotched and sickly cacti became more sparse and stunted, and rills of ashen sand crept in among them, I began to suspect how great was the hatred my heresy had aroused in the priests of Ong and to guess the ultimate malignancy of their vengeance.The definitive treatment of the trees and tree-like plants of Sonora, a remarkably diverse and biologically important region, ranging from some of the driest and hottest areas in North America to cool, temperate woodlands and the northernmost tropical regions in the New World. There were rocks and much cacti, thickets of mesquite, broken ledges upthrust from below. The spaces between the cacti and the fallen black chunks of kva were crowded with brittle bush. These huge reptiles, surrounded by the black lava, the leafless shrubs, and large cacti, seemed to my fancy like some antediluvian animals. On the coast-mountains, at the height of about 2000 feet where during this season the clouds generally hang, a very few cacti were growing in the clefts of rock. The soil in parts was absolutely bare, in others covered by numberless dwarf cacti, armed with formidable spines, and called by the inhabitants "little lions. ![]() This was evident from the dress and complexion of the men - from the increased size of the ombu-trees - the number of new cacti and other plants - and especially from the birds. ![]() It seemed to him that the cacti and the shrubs were aware of his presence - not sharply and consciously, but warmly and dimly, as if from the depths of a pleasant sleep.Ī few hedges, made of cacti and agave, mark out where some wheat or Indian corn has been planted. It ambled on slowly, and paused under the cacti to poke its reptilian face into the empty shell of a dung beetle. In a nearby dried-up watercourse there were barrel cacti, whose juice was drinkable.īut the area of ground between himself and the fruit-bearing cacti now communicated an air of menace. Brought up in 1950s in Tyneside, he read extensively, daydreamed, and grew cacti because they seemed like the vegetation of an alien planet.Īmid scruffy spidery shrubs, cacti with fuzzy yellow halos branched upwards like corals from some destitute sea-bed.Īt least on this road to somewhere or nowhere he needn’t fear hitting rocks or dagger-trees or cacti like corals abristle with spikes.
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