Note IV'-44 — Chapter IV · OBSERVATIONS ON NEW SPAIN.[IV'-1]

The tree is not the palmetto of the Southern States, Sabal palmetto, but one of the large woody yuccas, of the same genus as the small shrubby ones commonly called Spanish bayonets, from the character of the leaves Pike notes. Yucca treculeana (or canaliculata) is a Mexican species sometimes 25 feet high and 2 feet thick, thus answering to the requirements of the text. The one best known in our country is the tree yucca, Yucca arborescens, very similar to the last named. This grows abundantly in some parts of Southern California in the valley of the Mohave r., sometimes so thickly as to make a sort of forest. Multitudes may be seen along the line of the Atl. and Pac. R. R. in the desert, where there is for many miles no sign of anything else that looks like a tree.