398 SCIENCE PROGRESS. 



as long ago as 1859; and Dr. Veatch, one of the party, 

 brought away dried specimens of a few plants, including a 

 very singular one described below ; but he, who was not a 

 botanist, reported the island as nearly destitute of vegeta- 

 tion. Since then several botanists have visited Cedros ; 

 and the latest summary gives the number of phanerogams 

 recorded as 135 species. With regard to the name Cedros, 

 it should be explained that there are neither cedars nor 

 cypresses in the island, and it seems probable that the name 

 Cerros of the older maps and gazetteers is the correct one ; 

 but Greene (19) argues that the contrary is the case and 

 that the island received its name from the presence of a 

 juniper ( funiperus cedrosianus), although this juniper is 

 neither plentiful nor prominent, being at the most ten 

 to fifteen feet high, and often a dwarf shrub. Open groves 

 of a pine (Pinus muricata) exist on the higher slopes, some 

 of the trees being probably as much as seventy feet high. 

 The Dr. Veatch mentioned above collected most of the 

 specially peculiar plants of the island, and although they 

 were described and a number of them figured as long ago 

 as 1862, it may be desirable to give a reference to the 

 place (20), because it is a publication found in few libraries 

 in Europe. Remarkable among the trees is the anacardi- 

 aceous Veatchia cedrosensis (Rhus Veatchiana). Greene 

 writes : " The most conspicuous objects everywhere were 

 the clumps of what Dr. Veatch and his party so naturally 

 denominated the elephant tree. These trees at our time 

 had not put forth their leaves, and their low, thick, un- 

 wieldy trunks, of which there were always several from the 

 same root, clothed with a perfectly smooth, gray, skinny 

 bark which looks like the distended skin on a very fat 

 animal, could hardly fail to suggest the limbs of the ele- 

 phant. There are no parts of the island, except the higher 

 elevations, upon which this tree does not thrive ; but the 

 largest specimens were seen in the arroyos, not far back 

 from the shore. Agreeably to its aspect of a swollen limb, 

 the epidermis of the trunk is really, as it were, distended 

 by a very thick, soft, inner bark, more than an inch in 

 depth, which, when cut, exudes a great quantity of some 



