180 fedgerows of Todos Santos. [ZOE 
in the usual Mexican fashion, mostly of adobe, and is situated upon 
high dry ground overlooking the irrigated fields and gardens. No 
Stream runs from the adjoining high Sierras, but the water rises 
from the earth and is carried round about in irrigating ditches, so 
that a lowland two by three miles in area is watered, remains green 
and is a veritable oasis in the uninhabitable surrounding region. 
This tract is divided into small farms, separated from each other by 
dense hedges, six to fifteen feet high, composed of the native plants, 
and the paths or trails (there are no wheeled vehicles in the region) 
are bordered on both sides by these high walls of vegetable growth. 
Now and then a cotton-wood or a tree-like Celosia grows in them, 
or sometimes an escaped guava is seen in full bloom, but it is most- 
ly composed of large herbaceous perennials, nearly all different from 
those of Alta California. Every one who collects plants in southern 
Lower California is certain to bring away that most showy scarlet 
Antigonum, or “ Flower of St. Michael,”’ and these hedges in many 
places are blazing with it. Another conspicuous flower climbing 
over tall Bebbias and the Asclepiads, is the bright yellow omea 
aurea. This is a most handsome and little known perennial, large- 
flowered ‘ convolvulus,’’ and if possible should be introduced into 
general cultivation. Two magnificent Viguieras ( %. delloidea and 
tomentosa), often fifteen feet high, overtopping the other growth 
with their numerous sunflower-like blossoms, furnish much of the 
yellow for these many-colored hedgerows. Another of the tall 
plants but not a common one is Cesalpinia, with its long stem and 
terminal yellow raceme waving in the wind. A single flower of 
Sacquemontia abutiloides is not very large, but the plant bears such a 
host of them that they almost hide the leaves with a cloud of blue, 
especially where the hedgerows are not so rank. Rivina, Rhynch- 
osia, Phaseolus and Ipomeea, with their slfhder and twining stems 
bind the whole together, and their small, different-colored flowers 
add to its beauty. At the foot of this luxuriant vegetation grows a 
fern (Gymnogramme trifoliata) sometimes taller than a man, and 
along the base there is often a pretty undescribed Hermannia, or, 
if an irrigation ditch is near, the ground may be carpeted with a 
small-flowered Commelina. Other plants ‘not so attractive to the 
general observer, but very interesting to botanists, find a place to 
their liking under the protection of these hedges, 
In the town nothing grows, and the whole surrounding region 
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