4 * 
270 Plants from Cape St. Lucas. [ ZOE 
and first made its treasures known, was gathered here. During 
the rainy season the air is full of moisture, the full heat of the sun 
is felt, and a person coming from the north has the feeling of being 
in a greenhouse among dripping plants, and the exertion which is 
possible later when the atmosphere becomes dry can not at this 
time be borne. The moisture of the air also makes it difficult to 
dry the plants, and in spite of the utmost possible care they are 
more disposed to mold than to become good specimens, 
The collector in the field is in continual danger of being enveloped 
in a thunder storm and drenched by a tropical rain. It is not sur- 
prising that the mountain collection of Mr. Xantus should have 
been lost, for every one rides horse or mule back over the trails, and 
goods of all description are carried upon pack animals, there being 
no roads nor wagons. The trails over the inhabited portion are 
pretty good, but those into the high mountains are decidedly bad; 
they are steep, rocky, often overgrown with vegetation that drenches 
the traveler with dew and rain drops. The summits are hidden 
during the rainy months by clouds, and about the peaks it almost 
always begins to rain and thunder at noon. Any one who collects 
plants in these high mountains during the rainy season must expect - 
to be wet all day and kept awake all night by innumerable mos- 
quitoes, but will be repaid by the sight of many strange and hand- 
some plants, of which he may carry away specimens if his papers 
are not destroyed by the rain. 
Many plants grow about San José that Xantus did not collect, 
although they are very abundant and often very conspicuous; some 
because they are difficult to dry were perhaps intentionally neglected; 
such are the Portulacas, which abound, and are represented by five 
species. No'mention is made of the cacti; a class of plants very 
difficult to prepare specimens from, but at that time the abundant 
ones were undescribed species; the giant cerei have since been 
named:C. Pringlei and C. pecten-aboriginum, and the most abun- 
dant of the smaller ones is now known as C. gummosus. Xantus 
must have seen the handsome flowers of the latter spécies and eaten 
__ its delicious scarlet fruit, for at that time of the year it bears both, 
' and the fruit is sold in town by boys, who collect it and remove the 
thorns. Why plants as abundant, handsome, conspicuous. as Plu- 
‘meria, were not collected, is not easy to imagine. This Plumeria 
isa tree sometimes twenty-five feet high, bearing at the ends of the 
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