44 
and’ stumble badly, running great risk of breaking a limb or 
throwing the riders over their heads. About such spots, however, 
some charming flowers were obtained. One of these was Cruck- 
shanksia Geisseana, Ph., an elegant plant, covered with masses of 
showy yellow flowers, very fragrant, and remarkable for its in- 
volucral, long-stiped sepals. Another was a_ Bignoniaceous 
species, named Argylia, which has long, finely dissected radical 
leaves, and a scape ten or twelveinches high, having a large 
cluster of yellow trumpet-shaped flowers at the summit. Still 
another plant of much interest, growing in clumps, was an Um- 
bellifer called Evemocharis, a tall almost naked stemmed under- 
shrub, with long internodes and curious subbipinnatifid leaves, 
which emit the odor of apples when first plucked or bruised. 
Along this route also grew some of the most peculiar Cacti 
that I had ever seen. The most noticeable of all belongs toa 
genus created by Philippi, and is, I believe, confined to this 
desert, named Eulychnia brevifora. It throws up from a clus- 
ter of roots numerous columnar stalks about as large in diameter as 
aman’s arm, and armed with innumerable long, unequal, needle- 
like spines. The flower is on the summit of the stalk, not unlike a 
large cup in aspect, the lower part of which is covered with 
crinkly velvet hairs of a lavender hue, above which rises a single 
row of stiff white petals, including a host of delicate stamens. 
Another Cactus of the melon variety, not over eight inches high, 
and not unlike a pineapple in shape, has its spines twisted about 
the stem so that they resemble a bird’s nest, inside of which the 
small red flowers hide like eggs. 
When we reached the Quebrada, we found it to be a very 
rocky ravine running up the hillside between two eminences, 
along the slopes of which were heaped many boulders, as if car- 
ried down there by floods in former ages. Among the rocks 
trickled a small stream of water, which soon lost itself in the sand 
at the bottom of the ravine. As the day was quite warm, and I 
was heated and tired with my long ride, it sounded very pleas- 
ant to hear the gurgling of water, and as I have often done on 
such occasions in the White Mountains, I hastened to scoop up 
a drink in the hollow of my hand. My companion, a native 
Chileno, laughed at my motions, and with good reason, for I had 
