BOTANY OF SANTA CRUZ ISLAND. 387 



years ago, never since seen or heard of until the past sea- 

 son, when I found it plentiful on the remote islet of San 

 Miguel, and also at the western extremity of Santa Cruz. 

 It is more than possible that Nuttall's scant specimens 

 from San Diego were made from a single plant, and that 

 perhaps th- only one which ever became exiled there. It 

 would naturally be in this great family of the Composike 

 whose seeds are made to travel with the winds, that we 

 should expect to find plants of insular origin most frequent- 

 ly establishing themselves upon the continental shores, and 

 in the interior beyond the coasts; and more especially, since 

 the dry season, during which the seeds of these plants are 

 matured and given to the air, is the time when the trade 

 winds prevail from the islands toward the continent. 



The only thistle on Santa Cruz was evidently a new spe- 

 cies. Nothing like it was known to me; but not long after 

 my return, Mr. Parish of San Bernardino, whose district is 

 exactly to the leeward of this island, sent me this same 

 thistle for a new species of his own vicinity. Still another 

 somewhat rare Composita of the San Bernardino region, 

 Stephanomei'la cichoriacea, a species very remarkably differ- 

 entiated from its numerous congeners, is superlatively plen- 

 tiful on our island, and that not on the northern slope near- 

 est the mainland, but m the interior and on the southern or 

 seaward slope. With its white-woolly herbage, and tall 

 stems growing in prodigious clumps in every rocky place or 

 hanging from the niches of the highest and most inaccessi- 

 ble precipices, it is one of the striking figures in the Santa 

 Cruz landscape, and doubtless the island is the birthplace 

 of this species. 



Thus far our insular botany has yielded two generic types 

 which have no continental species. One of these is Lyoiio- 

 thamniis. This is represented by one species peculiar to 

 Santa Catalina, and by a second which in so far as we know 

 is endemic on Santa Cruz, where it is the most beautiful, as 

 it is one of the most abundant arboreal products. The 



