This is the country of three seasons.From June to November it lies hot,still,and unbearable,sick with violent unrelieving storms; then on until April,chill,quiescent,drinking its scant rain and scanter snows; from April to the hot season again,blossoming,radiant,and seductive.These months are only approximate; later or earlier the rain-laden wind may drift up the water gate of the Colorado from the Gulf,and the land set its seasons by the rain.
The desert floras shame us with their cheerful adaptations to the seasonal limitations.Their whole duty is to flower and fruit,and they do it hardly,or with tropical luxuriance,as the rain admits.It is recorded in the report of the Death Valley 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.