BOTANY OF SAN MIGUEL. 83 
of that they report ice plant to be almost the only vegetation 
there. The species is a native of southern Africa, but it has 
long been known as growing spontaneously around San Diego, 
where its existence has in times past been ascribed to acci- 
dental introduction. I do not see how it ean heneeforth be 
doubted that it is one of the waifs from Santa Cruz and San 
Miguel Its depauperate condition just back from the beaches 
of southern California indicates that it does not find itself at 
home there as on the islands. The climate is too clear and 
dry. Its peculiar crystalline-dewy herbage requires a cool 
misty atmosphere for its better development. I can not but 
believe both that it is indigenous to these islands and that 
from them and not from Africa it was derived by the sea 
coasts of San Diego County. If it be one of the hale and 
_ Vigorous remnants of an old Californian flora surviving on the 
islands then one would wish to consider its presence in San 
Diego County as a co-survival. But, from what has already 
been shown, its survival on the continent would naturally be . 
looked for at the northward of San Miguel (where it is now 
the most characteristic plant), where the continental coast 
climate most resembles that of this particular island. But no 
trace of it is found in all our cooler and more humid northern 
ocean precincts. We find it on the mainland only when we 
have reached lines of shore washed by the very waves that 
have rolled in from the islands, and where the climatie condi- 
tions little favor it. 
If it be doubted that the species is veritably indigenous to 
San Miguel, we are met by the question, how then, as a foreign 
importation, did it get there ? Not by cultivation. No seeds 
ave been sown here by the hand of man except those of 
lucerne and a few of the more common market-garden vegeta- 
es, and none of these plants have succeeded well. There 
are, truly, as our catalogue will show, not a few foreign and 
Old World plants run wild on San Miguel; but all of them 
are species long since naturalized throughout all central and 
northern parts of California. These came hither, doubtless, 
y the same agencies which brought the more than equal 
