BOTANY OF CEDROS ISLAND. 197 
larly preeipitous rocks, we stood at the mouth of a small 
ravine leading up into the hills. The soil here was of a hard 
yellow clay, dry as dry could be, and in it were growing the 
uncommonly pretty red-flowered Pentstemon Cedrosensis and 
Mentzelia cordata, both familiar to us in the figured repre- 
sentations in the Hesperian, and in the old and not well kept 
herbarium specimens which Dr. Veateh had brought to Cali- 
fornia so many years before. Two evergreen shrubs which 
grew on these lower hills in sufficient quantity to impart an 
appearance of verdure which we had noticed as we had sailed 
near the shore, were the Gilia Veatchii and Har/ordia fruti- 
cosa, the latter then new to me; for I had overlooked the 
poor fragment of this at that time still unpublished thing, 
which Dr. Veatch had preserved. | 
At an early hour of the day following, our ascent to the 
summit of this part of the island was begun, the upward 
course being taken from the mouth of one of the broadest of 
the ravines. These ravines—and we crossed the lowest parts 
of a number of them before choosing by which one we would 
make the ascent— were all somewhat moist, in spots; but 
every springy place was nearly destitute of vegetation, the 
water being strongly salt or alkaline; even the stagnant 
pools in hollows of the rocks were pools of brine, and the 
damp rocks were glittering with salt-crystals. Only upon 
passing to points lying above these salt oozings was any con- . 
siderable vegetation seen. But long enough before the pine- 
crested summit of the ridge was gained we had collected good 
flowering specimens of such rare and desirable shrubs as 
Diplacus stellatus, Spheralcea fulva, Hauya arborea, and 
the juniper, Juniperus Cedrosanus, which gave to the island 
its name. Very near the summit, which is adorned with open 
groves of Pinus muricata, in which some of the trees may be 
seventy feet high, we found the Arctostaph ylos bicolor, Erto- 
gonum molle and the shrubby Senecio Cedrosensis; the last 
two being new discoveries. 
Baek from this first excursion at a little pas! midday, our 
party sailed along the shore a few miles southward, landing 
