BOTANICAL INFORMATION. 93 
Raton monntain, 7,000 feet above the sea, between lat. 38" and 36°; 
then the tributaries of the Canadian river, and ascending the great ridge 
between that river and the Del Norte, reached Santa Fé in lat. 35° 4)’, 
6,580 feet above the level of the sea. The route continued across the 
great dividing ridge between the Del Norte and the Gila river, at an 
elevation of 6,000 feet; then by the Colorado, and across the great 
desert of drifting sand to Cariso Creek. On the 28th of November 
they ascended the Cordilleras of California (the continuation south of 
which forms the peninsula of Lower California), reaching the highest 
point of the route, December the 5th, 3,000 feet above the sea, and as 
many below the overhanging peaks; mo they descended to San 
Diego on the coast of the Pacific, in lat. 32° 45’. 
During this route, assuredly the most NE plants met with 
were the Cacti, and of them the most striking is called by Dr. 
Engelmann Cereus giganteus. lt is represented in several of the views, 
sometimes simple, and sometimes branched, and is described as being 
from twenty-five to sixty feet in height, and two to six feet in circum- 
ference. The figures assuredly represent the well-known Cereus senilis of 
which the Royal Gardens of Kew boast two specimens fourteen to six- 
teen feet, and they did possess one, which died, eighteen feet, in height. 
Our plants are, however, unbranched. A beautiful, and we can well con- 
ceive a most characteristic plate of a gigantic branched one is given by 
the artist at p. 94, with a horseman at the foot, who looks quite a pigmy 
in proportion to it. We searched in vain for a figure or description 
of its flowering state; but we are assured by a correspondent in 
Mexico, from whom we received our specimens of C. senilis, that this 
species, when large enough and old enough to bear flowers, is crowned 
with that enormous woolly mass, which many of our readers will recol- 
lect as having been formerly in the possession of Mr. Lambert (after 
his death purchased by the British Museum), and known under the 
name of the ** Muff-Cactus.” If this statement be correct, and we 
have no reason to doubt it, this portion of the plant is analogous 
to the cushion-like crown upon the Melocactus communis, and that 
upon the Echinocactus Visnaga,—a receptacle, as it were, for the 
flowers 
Another exceedingly interesting plate in this book is “a group of 
plants exhibiting the vegetation on the Gila.” They consist of Cereus 
