NOTES CONCERNING THE FLORA OF SONORA. 



BY T. S. BRANDEGEE. 



Early in May the writer landed at Guaymas, the seaport of the 

 State of Sonora, Mexico. This month of the year is never a good 

 one for observing the vegetation of the region, for the ground has 

 completely lost the moisture acquired during the rainy season, and 

 no new showers are to be expected immediately. The time of 

 my visit was unusually unfavorable, for the rainfall of the preceding 

 rainy season had been small, and the vegetation of a dry earth under 

 a burning sun showed fewer signs of life than usual. The surface of 

 the countr}^ about Guaymas is very much diversified and eminently 

 suitable for a varied flora; the city itself is almost surrounded by high 

 cliffs and steep hills; the large harbor contains many islands, some 

 rocky and abrupt, some of a more gentle and rolling character, and 

 some extending into long sand-spits, but slightly elevated above high 

 tide. Its waters find their way into numerous small bays, situated 

 behind ridges and extending to the openings of long cafions, all of 

 which can easily be visited by obtaining the assistance of the clam- 

 orous boatmen. Any botanical collector who reaches this place is 

 likely to be visited by the same thoughts that often occurred to me 

 when, after climbing a high hill, I saw from the shade of some rock 

 the exquisite panorama spread out before me, and pictured the glo- 

 rious time Dr. Edward Palmer must have enjoyed, when, climbing 

 the rough hills covered with vegetation, crawling among rocks 

 steaming from recent rains, and sailing around and about the islands 

 and neighboring shores, he so carefully collected a flora then almost 

 unknown and abounding in species new to the scientific world. A 

 few plants were found, however, that do not seem to have been be- 

 fore noticed. One, that disagreeable bush Atamisquea emarginaia, 

 was seen on the hills near the coast, and as later it was often met 

 with in the neighborhood of Hermosillo, it must be a common plant 

 of this part of Sonora. Helianthus dealbatus, in a depauperate form, 

 was found growing on one of the long sand-spits, and as its habitat 

 was supposed to be the seashore sands between San Ouentin and Mag- 

 dalena Bay, this locality considerably extends its range. Palafoxia 

 linearis also grows in sandy locations, and in saline soil near tide wa- 

 ter bushes of Avicennia 7iitida are sometimes seen. 



