VEGETATION OF BOX CANON. 1 I 



particularly into the state of Chiapas, and many and vivid are the 

 tales of the greatly feared malaria. While to a certain extent 

 this may be true of some of the small native villages, where most 

 filthy and unsanitary conditions prevail, and where nourishing 

 food cannot be procured for love or money, the fever cannot be 

 laid to the effect of the climate. There are occasional hot days 

 when one longs for the cool of the mountains, but even then the 

 temperature does not exceed that of an August day in southern 

 California. For here we are directly in the path of the trade 

 winds, with sea breezes during the day and cool mountain winds 

 at night. 



NOTES ON THE VEGETATION OF BOX CANON. 



By Professor V. M. Spalding, 

 Desert Botanical Laboratory, Tucson, Arizona. 



Box Canon is one of the numerous cafions of the Sacra- 

 mento Mountains, a few miles to the eastward of Alamogordo 

 in southern New Mexico. Its name corresponds to its contour, 

 its steep sides which rise almost sheer several hundred feet, 

 hemmed in by surrounding hills, making it seem like a huge 

 box open only to the sky. Throughout its general westerly 

 course of some two miles, its left side has chiefly a northern 

 exposure, while the opposite side is exposed during the greater 

 part of the day to the full glare of the sun. Except for this 

 difference of exposure, it would be difficult to point out any 

 physical feature, aside from differences of vegetation, by which 

 one side of the canon could be distinguished from the other. 

 The long process of erosion which has resulted in cutting the 

 deep gorge, has left exposed on either side the same strata of 

 cretaceous limestones which form perpendicular cliffs, at the 

 foot of which the talus slopes, though rather steep, offer an 

 excellent foothold for vegetation. With this practical identity 

 of structure, however, there is a most striking difference in the 

 plant covering of the opposite sides of the canon. 



