A Sojourn in Cuba 



ment, before the oncoming of another wave, 

 "surely you cannot be Hving here! You must 

 have been blown from some warm bank, and 

 rolled into this little hollow crack like a dead 

 shell/' But, running back after every retiring 

 wave, I found that its roots were wedged into 

 a shallow wrinkle of the coral rock, and that 

 this wave-beaten chink was indeed its dwelling- 

 place. 



I had oftentimes admired the adaptation dis- 

 played in the structure of the stately dulse and 

 other seaweeds, but never thought to find a 

 highbred flowering plant dwelling amid waves 

 in the stormy, roaring domain of the sea. This 

 little plant has smooth globular leaves, fleshy 

 and translucent like beads, but green like those 

 of other land plants. The flower is about five 

 eighths of an inch in diameter, rose-purple, 

 opening in calm weather, when deserted by the 

 waves. In general appearance it is like a small 

 portulaca. The strand, as far as I walked it, 

 was luxuriantly fringed with woody Compositce^ 

 two or three feet in height, their tops purple 

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