234 



THE FORESTER. 



October, 



almost impenetrable jungle of trees, 

 underbrush and lianas, and are exceed- 

 ingly wet, the rainfall averaging 120 

 inches per year. Some of the trees of 

 the primeval forest of El Yunque have 

 been described by Dr. George Eggers, 

 the only botanist who has studied it, in 

 a letter written to Sir Joseph Hooker in 

 1883. as published in "Nature" (Lon- 

 don, 1884) : 



"As for the general character of the 

 Sierra Yunque forests, they of course 

 resemble in their main outlines those of 

 the other West India Islands. Here I 

 found several interesting trees, especially 

 a beautiful Talauma, with immense white, 

 odorous flowers and silvery leaves, which 

 would be very ornamental. The wood 

 is used for timber, and called Sabino. 

 A Hirtella, with crimson flowers, I also 

 found rather common. An unknown 

 tree, with beautiful, orange-like foliage 

 and large, purple flowers, split along 

 one side; and several other as yet unde- 

 termined trees and shrubs are among the 

 most remarkable things found. 



One of the most conspicuous trees in 

 some parts is the Coccoloba macrophylla, 

 which I found on my first visit to Porto 

 Rico. This tree is found up to an alti- 

 tude of 2,000 feet, but chiefly near the 

 coast, where it forms extensive woods in 

 some places which, at the time of flow- 

 ering, with immense purple spikes more 

 than a yard long, are very striking. The 

 tree is named Ortegon by the inhabi- 

 tants. It does not seem to occur on any 

 of the British islands, but to be confined 

 to Porto Rico and Hayti." 



Logs are still cut from the edge of 

 the Yunque forest, but the cost in time 

 and labor of securing timber therefrom 

 is far more than it would be to import 

 similar woods from Santo Domingo. A 

 few acres of forest are also preserved 

 here and there in the Sierra Cayey and 

 the Cordillera Central, notably between 

 Aibonito and Adjuntas. Collectively, 

 these small patches will not aggregate 

 ten square miles of standing timber, and 

 have been largely culled of their most 

 valuable trees. There is also a small 

 patch of forest preserved in the pepino 



hills, near Aguadilla, upon a small piece 

 of land belonging to the Government. 

 There may be a few more acres else- 

 where. Otherwise, in a commercial 

 sense, the mountains are deforested, 

 although some excellent trees still stand, 

 just as Walnut trees are found preserved 

 in the deforested areas of the United 

 States. 



The Coast=Border Woodlands. 



The second class of flora inhabits the 

 foothills belt lying between the south- 

 ern front of the Central Mountains and 

 the southern coast, a region which is 

 comparatively arid. The wide playa 

 plains and stream valleys of this belt 

 were also once covered with large trees, 

 a few scattered examples of which Lave 

 been preserved, but in general these 

 have been destroyed in order to clear 

 the land for sugar culture. 



This flora is markedly different from 

 that of the mountain region, although 

 there are a few species of trees common 

 to both regions. It is largely of the type 

 of low, shrubby, thorny, leguminous, 

 and acacia-like trees, with compound 

 leaves and thorny trunks or stems cov- 

 ered by Tillandsia (Spanish moss), and 

 largely of the type of growth known in 

 the United States as the Chaparral. In 

 the dry season this flora produces a 

 brownish landscape, as distinguished 

 from the evergreen of the mountain 

 region. This Chaparral-like flora is 

 thorny and dense, especially on the coast 

 hills between Ponce and Yauco. In this 

 region it is accompanied by a thick un- 

 dergrowth of grass, and, with the rolling 

 hills and " tepetate" soil, repeats nearly 

 every aspect of the Lower Rio Grande 

 country of Texas. 



The limestone summits of the hills, or 

 cerros, west of Yauco are covered by a 

 remarkable growth of Chaparral, includ- 

 ing Tree Cactus, among which are or- 

 gan-pipe forms resembling those of the 

 California deserts and the tree opuntias 

 of Mexico, accompanied by thorny 

 brush, the whole draped by moss. 



The products of the forests and other 

 vegetation of Porto Rico are numerous, 



