Information respecting Scientific Travellers. 125 



whose fruit is somewhat different from ours, and rose-trees covered 

 with innumerable flowers, afford their shade to farm-houses built of 

 stone in the stj'le of the houses of southern Europe, or constructed 

 of timber. A beautiful willow of pjTamidal form surrounds the 

 churches, and gives to the villages a picturesque aspect from a di- 

 stance. Apricot and peach trees grow in the gardens of the peasants. 

 The most important plant of all which are cultivated is the Sechium 

 edule, a cucurbitaceous plant whose growth is immense, and which 

 produces in the course of a year a most astonishing quantity of fruit. 

 It surrounds everything about it with its climbing stalks ; it often 

 covers entire houses and descends on the other side of the roof. It 

 would without doubt bear our climate, and would be a great resource 

 for the poorer classes. The soil of these table lands is formed of a 

 light sandy clay, yellowish and extremely fertile when not exposed 

 to too long a drought ; this clay rests upon a friable grit. The plain 

 is furrowed with deep ravines or barrancos, at the bottom of each 

 of which is a water-course ; there we find syenite, granite and argil- 

 laceous schist, upon which the formations above mentioned repose. 

 Above the plains, to about 2000 feet, there rise heights, for the most 

 part calcareous. The mean temperature of these table lands, at 20^° 

 of north latitude, was in May 13° Reaumur, and the temperature of 

 the soil gave the same result. 



" The forest vegetation, which quite disappeared on the table land 

 itself, consists on the heights of different species of fir, of oak and of 

 alder. In the environs of Turutlan, nine different species of the first 

 genus may be counted, two of which are new. The most remark- 

 able are the Pinus Montezmnce, Pinus Teocote, and especially Pinns 

 Ayacahnite, which Ehrenberg first made known a few years ago, 

 whose trunk rises to 120 feet, and whose cones attain the length of 

 from fifteen to sixteen inches. This magnificent tree would doubt- 

 less grow in our country, for during the winter months abundant 

 snow falls here in the places where it lives, and the climate is cold 

 and moist all the year. It would be a valuable acquisition on ac- 

 count of its resin, which has an agreeable smell, and which is so 

 abundant that it flows from the cones in limpid drops. These pine 

 woods are also mixed with oaks of five different species, and just as 

 in European forests of this nature, but few herbaceous plants grow 

 under their shade; amongst others a variety of our Pteris aquilina and 

 the Myrica xalapensis, which takes the place of our Arbutus Uva-ursi. 

 In the same way, the Helianthemum glomeratum here takes the place 

 of our Vaccinium Myrtillus and heath, and amongst its tufts creeps the 

 Fragraria mexicana, which much resembles our common strawbeny. 

 The Viscum vaginatum grows as a parasite on the pine-trees. A quan- 

 tity of noxious European weeds, amongst others the Urtica nrens, 

 have accompanied man up to this table land : the sterile and uncul- 

 tivated lands are covered with a very low underwood of oak and 

 alder, with the Helianthemum, Pteris and Myriea which I have just 

 mentioned, and they have quite the same appearance as regions of 

 similar nature in Europe. A large species of rabbit lives upon these 

 heaths, and is the only wild mammiferous animal of these table lands ; 



