﻿~ PLANTS FENDLERIANJE. 



" Mr. Fendler travelled the well-beaten track of the Santa Fe traders to the Arkansas, and 

 then followed that river up to Bent's Fort, which he reached on the 5th of September. On the 

 25th of September the Arkansas was crossed, four miles above Bent's Fort, and the westerly- 

 course was now changed to a southwestern direction. Opuntia arborescens was first observed 

 in the barren region now traversed ; and the shrubby Atriplex (No. 709) was the most character- 

 istic and abundant plant, furnishing almost the only fuel to be obtained. Thus far the country 

 was a comparatively level, or rather rolling, prairie, rising gradually from one thousand to more 

 than four thousand feet. But on September 27th, the base of the mountain chain was reached, 

 which is an outlier of the Rocky Mountains, and attains in the Raton Mountains the elevation of 

 eight thousand feet. West of these, in dim distance, the still higher Spanish Peaks appear, 

 which have only been visited, very cursorily, by the naturalists of Major Long's expedition in 

 1820. Scattered pine-trees are here seen for the first time on the Rio de los Animos (or Purga- 

 tory River of the Anglo-Americans), which issues from the Raton Mountains. The party several 

 times crossed large perfectly level tracts, which at this season, at least, showed not a sign of veg- 

 etation ; in other localities of the same description, nothing but a decumbent species of Opuntia 

 was observed. The sides of the Raton Mountains were studded with the tall Pinus brachyptera. 

 Engelm. (831), and the elegant Pinus concolor (82S). Descending the mountains, the road led 

 along their southeastern base, across the head-waters of the Canadian. 



" On the 11th of October, Mr. Fendler obtained the first view of the valley of Santa Fe, and 

 was disagreeably surprised by the apparent sterility of the region where his researches were to 

 commence in the following season. The mountains rise probably to near nine thousand feet 

 above the sea-level, two thousand feet above the town, but do not reach the line of perpetual 

 snow, and are destitute, therefore, of strictly alpine plants. Their sides are studded with the two 

 Pines already mentioned, with Pinus flexilis, &c. 



" The Rio del Norte, twenty-five or thirty miles west from Santa Fe, is probably two thou- 

 sand feet lower than the town, and spring opens earlier there ; but its peculiar flora is meagre. 

 On its sandy banks a few interesting plants were obtained ; and some others in places where 

 black basaltic rocks rise abruptly from the river, or where a rocky talus lies at their base. 



" South and southwest of Santa Fe, a sterile, almost level plain extends for fifteen miles, 

 which offers few resources to the botanist. Opuntia clavata was found exclusively here ; besides 

 this, Opuntia arborescens, O. phmacantha, Cercus coccineus, some grasses, and in some locali- 

 ties the Shrub Cedar (834), are the only plants seen on these wide plains. To the west and 

 northwest of Santa Fe, a range of gravelly hills thinly covered with Cedar and the Nut-pine 

 (830) offers a good botanizing ground in early spring. The valleys between these hills appear 

 to have a fertile soil, but cannot be cultivated for want of irrigation. They furnished some very 

 interesting portions of Mr. Fendler's collection, and of Cactaceae, the Mammilaria papyracantha. 

 Cereus viridiflo?-us, C. triglocltidiatus, and C. Fendleri. 



" By far the richest and most interesting region about Santa Fe for the botanist, as will be 

 seen from the localities cited in the following systematic enumeration, is the valley of the Rio 

 Chiquito (little creek) or Santa Fe Creek. It takes its origin about sixteen or eighteen miles 



