As you continue to climb, the open, grassy, shrub-dotted slopes change in places to sprawling thickets, called chaparral. These are made up of manzanita and skunkbush, SILKTASSEL, evergreen oaks, and underbrush of smaller shrubs. Among the common oaks are ARIZONA WHITE OAK and, on drier sites of the Tanque Verde range, SHRUB LIVE OAK. The oaks furnish protective cover, browse, and acorns for deer and other mammals and birds, and are of great value in retarding soil erosion on steep gravelly slopes. [Illustration: Turpentine-bush, a member of the sunflower family.] POINTLEAF MANZANITA is especially abundant on the lower eastern flanks of the Rincon Mountains in the Happy Valley area. Early in spring the waxy, urn-shaped blossoms, the leathery, glossy, evergreen leaves, and the typical grotesquely crooked, red-barked limbs, make manzanita one of the most attractive shrubs of the chaparral. Although SKUNKBUSH is a close relative of poison ivy and sumac, its aromatic foliage is harmless. Growing in compact thickets, skunkbush provides food and cover for birds and other small animals. Inconspicuous yellow flowers appear from March to June, and are followed by berrylike fruits which are dull red when mature. As you follow the trail higher, occasional MEXICAN PINYON PINES and ALLIGATOR JUNIPERS appear. Gradually these evergreens become more abundant, mingling with the oaks to form a pigmy oak-pine-juniper forest. Clumps of MOUNTAIN-MAHOGANY are noticeable, their feathery seed “tails” gleaming in the sunshine. Pinyons are among the commonest and most widespread trees of the middle elevations throughout the Southwest. The Mexican pinyon, which is the species growing abundantly in the Tanque Verde-Rincon upland, may be recognized by the fact that its foliage is in clusters of three needles to the bundle. Its cones require nearly 2 years to mature and contain hard-shelled seeds or nuts which are a source of food for many birds and mammals. These pines are usually shrubby, rarely more than 15 to 25 feet high, with horizontal, twisted, low-growing limbs. Intermingled with the pinyons are alligator junipers, often mistakenly called cedars. Those in the monument are conspicuous because their platy bark forms an attractive pattern resembling the squarish-scaled skin of alligators. The berrylike cones are soft and mealy, and are eaten by many kinds of wild animals. Although the oak-pine woodland supports a heavy stand of shrubby trees over much of the terrain, there are numerous open glades and grassy hillsides. In addition to some of the aforementioned grasses, BLUEGRASS, BULLGRASS, and PLAINS LIVEGRASS provide ground cover in this belt. Following summer showers, many flowering herbs brighten the open slopes. Yellow to orange petals of PUCCOON, and the white to lavender-and-rose blossoms of MOCK-PENNYROYAL and HOUSTONIA are among those seen along the trailside. Ponderosa Pine Forest