CONTRIBUTIONS TO WESTERN BOTANY- NO. U -89 



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deeply furrowed by the feet of many thoiiFands of animals. • In places it 

 iias been converted into a wagon .-road. ' Trails lead out" in ''all direction.^ 

 from Tepic into the adjacent mountains. It was here that I was warned 

 not to go out into the country for fear of brigands. 'This warning was 

 given me. before I left California. ■ At -Tepic I met people ranching out 

 m the. jnountains, and who had come in on horseback to transact business 

 -in to\\Ti. One of these men, an- Englishman, became friendly to me ?ind 

 vranted me to go cut to his ranch and botanize there. . It was a two da.ys' 

 ride out in the mountains. I asked him how about bandits.. He \sa jd, 

 -"Well, I have- been here iiine years and never saw any." It should be 

 .remarked that Mexicans- are usually peaceable and harmlegsi, but they live 

 from hand to mouth, and are die prey of political grafters, and in dire 

 necessity from shortage of food are fpotential' bandits. ' Then, just now 

 tbere is general hostility to the Calles government because of its expulsion 

 of the Catholic clergv. The ralnk and "fil- of the Mexicans are Catholic, 

 and tne women resent most strenuously the expulsion of the priests. Nf) 

 ;.(lfiubt that clers^' was responsible for many iniquities, . poll tical, for they 

 carnot keep their fingers out of politics. ...- - , * 



;. ■. I paid no {ittention to any warnings about bandits, but went out into 

 ihe hills to botanize wherever T thought I coiild get specimens, but I did 

 not do the region thoroughly for lack of time. It is a rich region botanic- 

 ally. On the mountain a few miles south of Tepic I found a rich flora 

 on its lower slopes, below the pines. There was a runaway irrigation 

 .<litch, that in some great stonn had cut a gully 50 feet deep) through the 

 gra^-elly soil as it came out from an old ranch. This gully was perhaji.s 

 a mile, long, and rarely over 20 feet wide, and with mostly vertical sides, 

 and was a mass of vegetation throughout, no end of ferns and herbaceou.-! 

 plants. It surely was a treat to botanize there. Then on the open slope 

 :oi^ the mountain were all sorts of flowers, mints, lobelias, various species 

 of plants, belonging to the Evening Primrose family, Erythraeas, Lopezia-s 

 Compositae, Solanums, and many ferns I never saw before. For three 

 •successive days I tramped up there some five miles from the city and 

 oatne back loaded with specimens. Then I spent a day along the river, 

 A.ve would call it a creek. It was IS to 30 feet wide, flowing very slug- 

 gishly, and with mud banks little above the surface of the^ water.. In a 

 I'umber of places the water was bridged by the water hyacinth (Trapa), 

 forming a complete carpet over the surface. This is the same plant that 

 forms such floating islands on the lower Nile in Africa, and covers many 

 rivers in Florida. The cattle are very fond of it, and I saw several cows 

 v\-alking along in the middle of the river and eating a swath through it. 

 •nd only their l)acks showing above the surface. They would not dare do 

 this along the seacoast where the alligators abound, but at Tepic there are 

 '^.one. I saw no venimous snakes. There were several places that I 

 desired very much to visit there but lack of time prevented. I then took 

 the train some 70 miles up the railroad into the mountains to Ixtlan, and 

 I botanized there three days. At this point there is a very old and much 

 I'J^ed trail leading south and east into the Guadalajara country, which is 

 en , the other side of the Sierra Madres. This trail was in some places 



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