t 
198 PITTONIA. 
for the second time at the opening of a broad arroyo the 
course of which, for some distance back from the shore, lay 
between low table-lands; and here vegetation was more 
abundant than we had elsewhere seen except at the island's 
pine-clad summit. The peculiar Agave of the island was here ` 
abundant, and, fortunately for our wish to determine whether 
it was a new or an old species, many of the specimens were 
just in full flower. 
Our three days’ stay was oceupied in sailing southward 
from beach to beach, a few miles at a time, going ashore and 
making such brief explorations as we could in such of tne 
various canons and arroyos as looked most inviting. I re- 
marked, at every new landing, and in each ravine, as we 
passed along, a few species not seen before. Each separate 
canon appeared to have some of its own; but there were 
other species which might be seen on every hillside. The 
most conspicuous objects everywhere were the clumps of 
what Dr. Veatch-and his party so naturally denominated the 
elephant tree. These trees, at our time, had not put forth 
their leaves, and their low thick unwieldy trunks, of which 
there were always several from the same root, clothed with 
their perfectly smooth gray skinny bark which always looks 
like distended skin on a very fat animal, could hardly fail to 
suggest the limbs of the elephant. There are no parts of the 
` islands, except the higher elevations, upon which this tree 
does not thrive ; but the largest specimens seen were in the 
arroyos not far back from the shore. Agreeably to its aspect 
` of a swollen limb, the epidermis of the trunk is really, as it 
were, distended by a very thick soft inner bark, more than an 
inch in depth, which, when cut, exudes a great quantity of 
some gummy or pitehy substance, quite resembling that 
yielded in less quantities by some of the most poisonous 
species of rhus, or sumac; but this produet of the elephant 
tree is quite innocuous, as I can attest, who, although readily 
subject to all that poison oak can infliet on human flesh, 
remained unhurt by contact with the exudation from this tree. 
Although in the list of island plants I retain for this the name 
