﻿354 Cook : Flora of the Canary Islands 



hcterophylla or the spiny-leaved, coriaceous Rubia fruticosa. The 

 former species has been reported only from Lanzarote, but we 

 found it abundant on the waste near Gaidar. The latter is pecu- 

 liar to the islands and grows in ravines and on hillsides as well as 

 on the arid plains. The Rubiaceae are further represented by 

 another species of Rubia, a species each of Vaillantia and Shcrar- 

 dia, and several Galium* — all known also from Europe ; by Phyllis 

 nobla L., a species peculiar to the islands which we have never 



seen 



pendida 



its slender drooping branches and leaves much resembles a dimin- 

 utive weeping willow. It remains green and flowers on the dry 

 hillsides when even the fleshy Euphorbias have lost their foliage and 

 almost all the vegetable world seems dead. The bell-shaped 

 flowers are waxy white— turning black, as does the whole plant, 

 in drying — and appear to be dioeciously dimorphic, i. e., the long- 

 and short-styled blossoms are on separate plants. 



Asparagus pastoriamis is another example of drought resistance. 

 We found its spiny branches covered with fragrant white flowers 



on a desert hillside in the middle of July of an unusually dry 

 year. 



Besides the Euphorbias mentioned above, the islands abound 

 in other species. The fruticose forms occupy the place of the 

 cacti of the American deserts. Six out of eight of these shrubby 

 species are confined to the Canaries. Among them is the cele- 

 brated Euphorbia which the Guauches used, as do their descend- 

 ants to-day, to poison the water left by the retreating tide in deep 

 pools on the shore— hypnotizing the fish, which rise to the sur- 

 face and are captured and freshened in unpoisoned water. Then 

 there is also the strange Euphorbia Canadensis growing in clumps 

 ten to twelve feet in diameter and sometimes twenty feet high, 

 which is a most striking feature of the hillsides. The square or 

 hexagonal cactus-like stems are about three inches in diameter and 

 the clusters have been compared to immense candelabra. In ad- 

 dition to the woody forms there are eleven herbaceous species, all 

 except one of which are known from the Mediterranean region. 



wish for a revision of the genus. 



Euph 



Anothe 



