216 CALIFORNIA ACADEMY OF SCIENCES. 



steep, zigzag trail; for Guadalupe is simply a large table- 

 land about three thousand feet high, its volcanic, rocky sides 

 being in most places too precipitous for even a goat to climb, 

 and almost wholly barren. The plateau is interrupted by a 

 central ridge, some points of which rise a thousand feet 

 higher; but the table-land section of the island is pleasant 

 ground, with a considerable breadth of open, grassy plain, 

 some miles of cypress woods, and several springs of excellent 

 water; although there are no streams that flow after the 

 winter rains have ceased. Our long and slow ascent from 

 the beach to the canning place, near the principal spring on 

 the island, occupied the first half day, but was far from 

 being a tedious or uninteresting pilgrimage. Our blankets 

 and provisions were borne on the shoulders of a half dozen 

 of the Indian soldiers; and we were free to range about and 

 examine the new forms of plant life which began to appear 

 as soon as we had, by zigzag climbing, risen out of the 

 canon where our trail began. The gentler declivity now 

 leading to the plateau was covered with the really very 

 handsome Senecio Palmeri, a shrub three or four feet high, 

 with snow-white foliage and fine clusters of yellow blos- 

 soms. Erect, half-shrubby plants of lower growth, namely, 

 Sphceralcea sulphurea and Hosackia ornithopus,vfexe also quite 

 abundant, together with a fine, wild morning glory, which 

 spread its long trailing branches abroad among the rocks, 

 and was just putting forth its earliest creamy-white corollas. 

 The latter are almost half hidden by their large, leafy in- 

 volucral bracts, and the plant is in no wise referable to the 

 Convolvulus occidentals of California. It has been described 

 on a preceding page as C. macrostegius. All four of the 

 conspicuous plants that first meet the eye of the botanist 

 here, are peculiar to the island. Another plant of these 

 same middle altitudes is not so new; but the failure of my 

 predecessor in this field to either collect or make a note of 

 its presence on the island, I cannot account for. I refer to 

 Brodicea capitata, which is found exceedingly common, not 



