124 Information respecting Scientific Travellers. 



rounded, sometimes jagged, sometimes pierced with holes. Immense 

 Pothos are also parasites on the trees, or spring out of clefts in the 

 rock ; in the marshy places numerous species of Arum grow, one 

 of which has leaves four feet long and two broad. The difficulty, or 

 rather the impossibility of drying specimens of these plants, is one of 

 the reasons why they are still so imperfectly known." 



"Turutlan, May 15, 1841. 

 Beginning of the rainy season. 



*' From Santa-Maria of Tlepacojo, situated at twenty leagues from 

 the south of Papantla, in the Tierra caliente, it takes only eight or 

 ten hours, mounting to the westward, to cross what is called the 

 Tierra templada, or temperate region, and to reach Turutlan, a small 

 town situated at the entrance of the cold region, Tierra fria. Nowhere 

 else, 1 think, could the naturalist observe in so short a space of time 

 vegetation under such different aspects. Although the first village, 

 Santa-Maria, is from eight to nine hundred feet above the sea, and on 

 that account beyond the region of musquitos and those legions of 

 other insects which infest the coast, yet the thermometer rises from 

 25 to 30 degrees of Reaumur during the day, and the vegetation 

 is quite tropical. We ascend thence across the temperate region as 

 far as the Cordilleras, and the beautiful tree-fern, the Cyathaa mexi- 

 cana, was the first indication that we had left the Tierra caliente ; 

 magnificent oaks with glossy leaves compose the forests, and many 

 smaller plants remind the botanist of the neighbouring European spe- 

 cies. Buildings of stone or of wood take the place of bamboo huts. 

 As we continue to ascend, we meet with the Liquidambar styraciflua, 

 the first tree characteristic of the Tierra fria ; at every step the forms 

 of the vegetables are more like ours, although mixed with a multi- 

 tude of others peculiar to this country. On the neighbouring heights 

 magnificent forests of pines rise majestically, and the declivities are 

 adorned with shrubs of Arbutus and Vaccinium, with flowers larger 

 and more beautiful than our species of the same genera, as well as 

 with a Rhexia with deep red corymbs. 



" The Alnus Jorullensis, which greatly resembles the alder of our 

 own country, accompanies the traveller as far as the elevated table 

 lands of the interior. It is here that the aspect of nature suddenly 

 changes, and that we might believe ourselves transported into cen- 

 tral Europe : instead of a clear sky we again find the clouds and the 

 grayish tints of our northern regions ; fogs veil a part of the plain, 

 and dark clouds rise and descend all day along the mountain-sides. 

 Whilst in the hot region thick forests filled with climbing plants cover 

 the whole face of the country, and the lands cleared by the Indians 

 are merely small spaces where they have set fire to the wood, and 

 where they cultivate just enough maize and beans to subsist on ; 

 here, on the table land, as far as the eye can reach, we see well-cul- 

 tivated fields of the same plants, as well as of other cereals. On 

 heaps of stones laid in the form of dikes grows the Agave americana 

 or Maguay, which produces the wine of the country ; the enclosures 

 are formed of quickset hedges oi Mespilus pubescens and other shrubs. 

 Apple-trees of a bad sort, the Prunus Capuli, a kind of cherry-tree. 



