Evening star., 1936-06-16

The rsrest plant in North America
found only four times by botsnists-is
ground hugging desert floWer-the
gold carpet.
The story of this strange little flower
fighting against early and inevitable
extinction is reported by DR.. Frederick
v. Coville. Department OF Agriculture
botanist, in the current issue OF the
journal OF the Washington Academy OF
Sciences.
1t appears, on rare occasions, In the
Death Valley. Its appearance is that OF
q rosette of yellow leaves, sometimes
as much as 10 inches in diameter, lying
fat on the ground. From this rosette
arise innumersble tiny golden yellow
blossoms. so that the whole seems like
q patch OF golden carpet in the brown
fabric of the desert.
The reason for its rare appearance. as
outlined by DR.. Coyille. is that its seeds
can terminate only after q good rain.
Such rains are rare in its habitat. They
must spring up within q few days. Or
dinsrly, even then, the plants will die
with the increasing drought before bios
soming-thus forming no seeds. In
order for them to produce the seeds for
another generation there must be
another rain following shortly on the
first.
The seeds become buried in the desert
soil, and, in the course OF evolution, have
developed the capacity Of suspended
animation over q course Of years. In
the old days, 1t is probable, these seeds
retained their fertility only q single
season. Now there may be several
years between rains sufficient to spur
them to termination, and even longer
periods between double rains which will
ems BILE them to form seeds.
DIR. CovilIe first found the strange
little plant in 1891. There we're only
two specimens and search failed to re-
veal any more. tt was not reported
again until 1915, when, almost on the
exact spot Of DR.. Coville's discovery.
another botsnist reported a few more
specimens. At about the same place two
wears later another single plant was re =
ported snd no others were revealed by
an intensive search through the entire
area.
In 1881 and 1892 DR. Coville and M.
French Gilman, a California botanist,
again made an intensive search, but
could not find a single specimen. They
came then to the erroneous conclusion
that the flower might be native Of
the mountains and that occasional seeds
were washed down after heavy rains.
Last year Mr.. Gilman again took up
the search and succeeded in locating
the plant in four places. He found il
individuals altogether and watched
their growth carefully. Only three be-
came large enough to flower and pro-
duce seed. The others dried up and
died when they had only a few leaves
and no branches. Later he found many
specimens of the goI> carpet scattered
over small hills in the neighborhood.
These little hills all were whitish in
color and led to the idea that the chem
ical composition of the soil might have
something to do with the appearance
OF the gold carpets. Analysis, however,
showed there was no basis for this
assumption. The abundance in 1895
DR.. Coville attributes to the fact that
the Winter and Spring rains that year
were exceptionally heavy, considering
the location. This may have been the
last stand Of the strange little flower.
In the distant past, botanists believe.
the gold carpet may have been very
abundant plant, terminating and fiow.
ering annually in q reasonably moist
climate. Probably q few individuals
developed the capacity Ct producing