酷兔英语
    当前位置:
  1. 首页
  2. 文章
  3. 娱乐英语
  4. 原版小说
  5. 正文

The Land of Little Rain-Part1_Mary Hunter Austin(1868-1934)_English Literature(文学名著)-第2页

0 收藏 0 分享 0 赞

章节正文
文章总共2页
expedition that after a year of abundant rains, on the Colorado



desert was found a specimen of Amaranthus ten feet high. A year

later the same species in the same place matured in the drought at



four inches. One hopes the land may breed like qualities in her

human offspring, not tritely to "try," but to do. Seldom does the



desert herb attain the full stature of the type. Extreme aridity

and extremealtitude have the same dwarfing effect, so that we find



in the high Sierras and in Death Valley relatedspecies in

miniature that reach a comely growth in mean temperatures.



Very fertile are the desert plants in expedients to prevent

evaporation, turning their foliage edge-wise toward the sun,



growing silky hairs, exuding viscid gum. The wind, which has a

long sweep, harries and helps them. It rolls up dunes about the



stocky stems, encompassing and protective, and above the dunes,

which may be, as with the mesquite, three times as high as a man,



the blossoming twigs flourish and bear fruit.

There are many areas in the desert where drinkable water lies



within a few feet of the surface, indicated by the mesquite and the

bunch grass (Sporobolus airoides). It is this nearness of



unimagined help that makes the tragedy of desert deaths. It is

related that the final breakdown of that hapless party that gave



Death Valley its forbidding name occurred in a locality where

shallow wells would have saved them. But how were they to know



that? Properly equipped it is possible to go safely across that

ghastly sink, yet every year it takes its toll of death, and yet



men find there sun-dried mummies, of whom no trace or recollection

is preserved. To underestimate one's thirst, to pass a given



landmark to the right or left, to find a dry spring where one

looked for running water--there is no help for any of these things.



Along springs and sunken watercourses one is surprised to find

such water-loving plants as grow widely in moist ground, but the



true desert breeds its own kind, each in its particular habitat.

The angle of the slope, the frontage of a hill, the structure



of the soil determines the plant. South-looking hills are nearly

bare, and the lower tree-line higher here by a thousand feet.



Canons running east and west will have one wall naked and one

clothed. Around dry lakes and marshes the herbage preserves a set



and orderlyarrangement. Most species have well-defined areas of

growth, the best index the voiceless land can give the traveler



of his whereabouts.

If you have any doubt about it, know that the desert begins



with the creosote. This immortal shrub spreads down into Death

Valley and up to the lower timberline, odorous and medicinal as



you might guess from the name, wandlike, with shining fretted

foliage. Its vivid green is grateful to the eye in a wilderness of



gray and greenish white shrubs. In the spring it exudes a resinous

gum which the Indians of those parts know how to use with



pulverized rock for cementing arrow points to shafts. Trust

Indians not to miss any virtues of the plant world!



Nothing the desert produces expresses it better than the

unhappy growth of the tree yuccas. Tormented, thin forests of it



stalk drearily in the high mesas, particularly in that triangular

slip that fans out eastward from the meeting of the Sierras and



coastwise hills where the first swings across the southern end of

the San Joaquin Valley. The yucca bristles with bayonet-pointed



leaves, dull green, growing shaggy with age, tipped with

panicles of fetid, greenish bloom. After death, which is slow,



the ghostly hollow network of its woody skeleton, with hardly power

to rot, makes the moonlightfearful. Before the yucca has come to



flower, while yet its bloom is a creamy cone-shaped bud of the size

of a small cabbage, full of sugary sap, the Indians twist it deftly



out of its fence of daggers and roast it for their own delectation.

So it is that in those parts where man inhabits one sees young



plants of Yucca arborensis infrequently. Other yuccas,

cacti, low herbs, a thousand sorts, one finds journeying east from



the coastwise hills. There is neither poverty of soil nor species

to account for the sparseness of desert growth, but simply that



each plant requires more room. So much earth must be preempted to

extract so much moisture. The real struggle for existence, the



real brain of the plant, is underground; above there is room for

a rounded perfect growth. In Death Valley, reputed the very core



of desolation, are nearly two hundred identified species.

Above the lower tree-line, which is also the snowline, mapped



out abruptly by the sun, one finds spreading growth of pinon,

juniper, branched nearly to the ground, lilac and sage, and






文章总共2页
文章标签:名著  

章节正文
Copyright © 2023 Qeto All rights reserved.
商务合作 | 联系我们 | 关于我们 | 版权声明 | 隐私条款 | 如果智培

京ICP备05059198号-1 京公网安备 11011202003401号