The features so characteristic of the Atlantic coast region are here 

 entirely wanting. Swamps are conspicuous by their absence, as likewise 

 are trees, which are found only along the upper end of Nueces Bay. 

 Occasionally Prosopis juliflora, the Mesquite, becomes large enough to 

 be called a tree, but even then is low and spreading. Indeed, low and 

 spreading, stunted-looking trees are the rule, as the tall graceful forms of 

 a more northern climate do not find a place here ; but bushes of various 

 kinds are abundant, forming the dense and usually impenetrable chap- 

 parral. This chapparral is a very deluding thing, too. One ventures 

 into it by way of one of its lanes, which here and there sends off side 

 branches, imagining that by one of them he will find an exit, only at last 

 to discover that the way is completely blocked by a solid mass of bushes. 

 Getting lost in a place of this sort would be a very serious matter. 



Many species of smaller plants are found only under the chapparral. 

 They have either betaken themselves to these places of safety for self- 

 protection, or are the remnant of a flora which once thickly dotted the 

 open places. 



When grass is scarce the cattle become omniverous, devouring any- 

 thing that they can chew, whether it be good, bad or indifferent ; but 

 into the thorny wilderness they- cannot penetrate. The collector, in 

 order to be successful in obtaining good specimens from these places, 

 should possess a great amount of patience, go prepared to cut down the 

 bushes, and if he is inclined to profanity will probably exhaust his 

 vocabulary before finishing the job. 



Nine miles southeast of Corpus Christi is the Oso, a salt water lake, 

 three or four miles in diameter, connected with the bay by two inlets 

 about fifteen feet wide, and distant from each other about a mile. On 

 all maps which I have seen, the Oso is marked as an arm of the bay in- 

 stead of being separated from it by a strip of land, which at the " Blind 

 Oso," its narrowest part, is about 150 yards wide at times of unusually 

 high water. Beyond this narrow strip of dry sand, is a mud flat, a half 

 mile wide, before the waters of the Oso are reached. At other places 

 the strip of land separating the two bodies of water is much wider, being 

 almost a mile on the south side of the Blind Oso. 



Between the Oso and the Lagoon de Madre is a strip of slightly 

 elevated sandy land, about three miles wide, called Flower Bluff, the 

 principal growth of which is the live oak, reduced to a scrubby bush, 

 from three to eight feet high. Several truck farms are located on it, 

 and although there is more moisture here than at Corpus Christi the 

 vegetables produced are often of an inferior quality. 



In all, eight weeks were spent at Corpus Christi, from March 3d to 



I 



