Se ee ae ee 
1899 | VEGETATION OF TROPICAL AMERICA 9 
coast mountains, the continuous forests suddenly cease, and one 
has a wide view over a woodless country, partly plains, partly 
mountains, whose jagged outlines and water furrowed faces 
stand out sharply in the sunbright air. Far to the south behind 
the lake of Valenzia, one may see other blue looking mountains, 
and behind those lie the Llanos. In Brazil one meets quite the 
same experience. When one has traveled through that much 
broader border of forest-clad mountains which rim the Brazilian 
coast, and from the heights of Serra da Mantigueira looks down 
over the campos country, one sees the clouds cross the coast 
range of mountains, roll part way down the western slopes, and 
dwindle away in the dry air of the sunny campos; just as in 
Venezuela the clouds pass over the Caraibic mountains and dis- 
appear where the dry savanna country begins. The soil seems 
to be like the Brazilian; it was the same red clay, or at all 
events much like it, and here and there rich in sharp-edged 
gravel. There was on it the same carpet of high grayish grasses 
and other herbs, and here and there the same stunted trees, 
with the same coarse leaves, and even with trunks blackened by 
savanna fires, just as around Lagoa Santa; it was the very same 
form of vegetation and even to some degree with the same spe- 
cies as in Brazil. Only one thing I found different, the quantity 
of species. Those savannas evidently were much poorer than 
the campos of Lagoa Santa. Only a few species of trees were 
found here on an area which at Lagoa Santa would have been in 
possession of six to eight times as many. I must admit that 
it was a rather short visit I could pay those savannas, but my 
impression is quite in accordance with the experience of other 
travelers in the Llanos and other parts of Venezuela, for instance 
the valley of Caracas. This tract, with its 125 square kilo- 
meters, contains, according to Ernst, 104 species, and he consid- 
ers the flora of Llanos as a degenerate offspring from that of 
the surrounding countries, without endemic genera. As in all 
essentials the physical conditions of the campos and the savan- 
nas seem to be identical, the cause of the poverty of the latter 
surely is a historica] one, and most likely the following. 
