slowly that the increment of one season can not be marked without precise measurements, but year by year the lower leaves of the foliage crown die and add to the thatch of dry leaves that cover the trunk below. The trunk itself is six inches to a foot in diameter, a mass of spongy tissue with a more dense outer rind. Of these stems the peon makes fences, or sets them palisade-like for the walls of his hut, or hollows them out for bee-hives. The leaves of the plant make the most convenient thatch for his hut, and from the fibers of its leaves he makes ropes and sundry other articles of convenience. Palma china, as the native calls it, known to botany as Yucca australis, is a close relative of the preceding and often occurs in the same situations. Usually, however, this plant does not ascend to the heights attained by its neighbor, but is a native of the wide valley lands, where it often occurs in great profusion as at Pal mas Grandes, a few miles west of Mazapil, and again on the footslopes some twenty miles east of Camacho. This Yucca is the most striking of all the plants seen on this desert. Beaching a height of 35 to 40 feet, and having a trunk diameter of two to three feet, its upper portion is divided into straggling branches clothed for a foot or two from the tip with rigid outstanding leaves a foot and a half long. The branching of palma china is never symmetrical, but usually both trunk and branches are contorted and arched in various directions. Occasionally one is found straight and tall and beautiful,
