148 Plants of Baja California. [ ZOE. 
trees and eat the juicy, ripe fruit with which the ground under 
them, in. September, is in most cases plentifully sprinkled. 
FRANSERIA is a genus composed mostly of low shrubs or herba- 
ceous plants, sometimes prostrate, like those which help to stay the 
sands of our dunes, and to find a species becoming tree-like, was 
quite unexpected. Between Triumfo and La Paz, one of the species: 
grows so tall, that it was with difficulty I could secure specimens 
from the lowest branches, although I was on horseback. The small 
trees are fifteen or more feet high with ascending branches, and 
probably belong to F. flexuosa. The same plant was seen north of 
Comondu growing four or five feet tall, in large clumps. 
Ipom#a is exceedingly well represented in the southern part of 
the Peninsula; there are red, scarlet, purple and white ones, but the 
large yellow flowers of Z aurea are the handsomest of all. Its 
woody stems climb over the bushes and hedges, blooming profusely, 
and the flowers remain open most of the day in the bright sunlight. 
I. bracteata bears small flowers, and the plant is more conspicuous 
when the large bracts become red, as they do on the Sierra de la 
Laguna, after their flowers have fallen. The well known cypress: 
vine (Z Quamoclit) is common, and it is pleasing to see this com- 
mon garden flower growing wild. For producing quantity of color,. 
Jacquemontia abutiloides far excels any of its near relatives, the 
Ipomeas. It is usually low but sometimes spreads out over bushes: 
a length of ten feet, and when in full bloom seems to bear more 
flowers than leaves; it is then a mass of blue. 
MIRABILIS TRIFLORA is nota common plant and is one that could: 
not be overlooked. I saw it in but two localities, once in a deep 
cafion on the Sierra de la Laguna and once on a steep bank by the 
.side of a road near the mines of Triumfo. The plant repeatedly 
branches, has weak stems, and grows into a large, prostrate, en- 
tangled mass. It bears numberless bright scarlet flowers and becomes: 
a blaze of color, and would be an ornament to any garden. A Mi- 
rabilis from the high mountains is also a handsome species but can 
not compare in beauty with JZ #iflora. This mountain ‘‘ four- 
o’-clock ” grows erect two or three feet high, has large leaves and 
nearly white blossoms that are two or three inches long with exserted 
stamens twice that length. It loves a rocky habitat. 
TECOMA STANS grows in the Comondu region only in gardens" 
where it has been planted, but in the Cape Region it is abundant in 
