NO. 2 SMITHSONIAN EXPLORATIONS, I924 5/ 



many remarkable natural features of the State of New Mexico. Mr. 

 Standley made a study of the plants of the plains and hills near the 

 cavern, an area possessing a great variety of cactuses and other 

 characteristic desert plants of the Southwest. Visits were made also 

 to the canyons of the near-by Guadalupe Mountains. This range, 

 partly in New Mexico and partly in Texas, has at its southern end 

 Signal Peak, the highest point in the latter State, about which it 

 has been proposed to establish a State park. The Guadalupe Moun- 

 tains are comparatively unknown botanically, and numerous species 

 were found that had not been collected previously in New ^Mexico. 

 One of the interesting features of the vegetation of these mountains 

 is the profusion of the Venus-hair fern (Adiantum capillus-veneris) , 

 a species rare in the Southwest but here abundant everywhere along 

 the small streams. 



After completion of the field-work in the vicinity of the cavern, 

 a trip by automobile was made to El Paso, Texas, passing the southern 

 end of the Guadalupes. From El Paso the route was followed to 

 Las Cruces, New Mexico, and thence over the picturesque Organ 

 Mountains and past the White Sands, a vast expanse of gypsum sand, 

 almost pure white, resembling great drifts of snow. The White 

 Mountains also were visited, and the road was followed to Roswell 

 and Carlsbad, thus making it possible in a short time to gain a 

 general impression of the varied types of vegetation covering a large 

 area of characteristic desert and mountain country of southern New 

 Mexico. 



BOTANICAL EXPEDITION TO THE CENTRAL ANDES 



During the summer and fall of 1923, Dr. A. S. Hitchcock, botanist 

 in charge of systematic agrostology. Bureau of Plant Industry, De- 

 partment of Agriculture, and custodian of the section of grasses of the 

 U. S. National Museum, visited Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia for the 

 purpose of studying and collecting the grasses. He left New York 

 May 25 and arrived at Guayaquil June 16, making a short stop at 

 Port au Prince, Haiti, and at Buenaventura, Colombia, and a stay of 

 several days at Panama. 



The work in Ecuador was done in cooperation with the New York 

 Botanical Garden and the Gray Herbarium of Harvard L'niversity, 

 and these institutions shared in the specimens obtained. Therefore 

 in this country the collections included all families of flowering plants. 

 Several localities on the coastal plain were visited, after which col- 

 lections were made in the vicinity of Huigra, a town on the railroad 



