WILD PLANTS. 465 



An European poa grows wild in the streets and courtyards 

 of Port- of- Spain, and I am inclined to believe that scourge of 

 the gardener and planter the nut-grass (Cyperus Hydra) to be 

 a foreigner. 



A number of so called cosmopolitan plants such as the 

 Emilia Sonchifolia, Eclipta Erecta, Erigeron Canadense, Datura 

 Stramonium are, in all probability, accidentally imported species. 



Another class of plants calls for a few remarks in this place 

 I mean those which follow or accompany man on his path of 

 settlement and in his cultivations, which cover the walls of 

 neglected or abandoned dwellings, and are, for the most part, 

 sure symptoms of his former residence in their localities. They 

 are hardly to be met with anywhere else ; so much so, that we 

 can judge with certainty, by the mere presence of certain plants, 

 that a plantation must have existed in such or such a place ; in 

 fact, that we are in a RASTRAJO. Now where, I would ask, were 

 the germs of these plants previous to the eradication or decay of 

 the original vegetation ? 



The streets of Port-of- Spain are overgrown by a number of 

 plants of the genera cynodon, eleusine, cyperus, alternanthera, 

 and euphorbia ; these appear to become the more vigorous the 

 more they are trodden upon. Others could not resist or survive 

 this treatment, and, therefore, retire into vacant courtyards and 

 abandoned lots as, for instance, the peperomia, several urticas, 

 and amaranthi, the Elephanthopus Spicatus, Eclipta Erecta, 

 Parthenium Hysterophorus, Synedrella Nodiflora, a Hedyotis, 

 Leonurus Sibiricus, solanum, datura, and physalis, Scoparia 

 Dulcis, Capraria Biflora, a portulacca, a sida, and others less 

 common. On crumbling roofs and dilapidated mason-work we may 

 remark a barbula, G-ymnogramma Calomelanos, Dactyloctenium 

 JEgyptiacum, Poa Giliaris, Tradescantia Discolor, urtica, and 

 parietaria, Boerhaavia Paniculata (Rich.), eupatorium, and 

 sonchus, barreria, and verbena, &c. Two vines, a cissus and the 

 Jjuffa Operculata, cover nearly every old wall. 



On road-sides, we meet with certain of the same plants we 

 have just now enumerated, mixed up with a variety of species 

 belonging to different families. Where the road traverses culti- 

 vated land, the following genera prevail : Setaria, cenchrus, 

 sporobolus, chloris, saccharum, andropogon, cyperus, and fuirena ; 

 in moist situations, spermacoce, and barreria, spigelia, asclepias, 



D D 



