Mountain Mahogany The
California chaparral has hot summers with
temperatures commonly above 100 ° F . The
winters are about 50 ° to 60 ° F, but can
very quickly drop to freezing. Occasionally there
is snow in the winter, but it quickly melts off.
Most of the rain that falls on the chaparral comes
from storms over the Pacific Ocean. Fires are
common in the chaparral. The
Mountain Mahogany is a shrub or small deciduous
tree that grows in the California chaparral. It can
grow to be 12 ft. (4 m.) tall. The bark is grayish,
scaly, and Mahogany
has lobed leaves, and single small dry fruits that
have a feathery tails on the end. The leaves grow
alternately on short stems, and are lobed,
leathery, greenish-gray in color with straight
veins. Soft fuzzy hairs cover both the top and
bottom of the leaves. The flowers are small and
grow singly or on fascicles at the end of short
spurs. They flower from March to June. The main
adaption is dwarfing (getting smaller to survive).
It dwarfs because of severe drought, The Navahos use the twigs with their white flowers as prayer sticks. The handles of Navaho distaffs are made of this wood probably because it does not splinter easily. It is hard so the Navahos make dice from it. The Mountain Mahogany is not endangered. In fact it covers large areas. It can be found in Oregon, Baja California, the Channel Islands, South Dakota, Utah, Texas, Oklahoma, Arizona, and Mexico. by Phil Z. 2002
bibliography: L.H. Baley Horturium Corrnel University,(1979). Hortus Third New York: Macmillan Publishing Company Van William, Dersal R. Native Woody Plants of the U.S. Their Erosion control Wild Life Value U.S. Dept. Agriculture (1937). Washington D.C. Sparge, Charles . (1949). Manual of the Trees of North America vol.2. New York Dover Publications.Inc. Ricciut, Edward R. (1996) Chaparral . New York Benchmarks Books.
|