44 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 65 



flower gardens, the hills often being a mass of yellow. Various trips 

 were made in the central valley of Chile and one journey along the 

 Longitudinal Railway of Chile extended from Caldera to Santiago. 

 Special trips were made for certain rare plants like Cereus castaneus, 

 first collected in 1862 and not since observed until found by Dr. Rose ; 

 and Cactus horridus and Cactus Berteri, described in 1833, but long 

 since discarded by Cactus students. In the central valley of Chile 

 is seen that beautiful palm, the only one native of Chile, Jubaea 

 spectabilis H. B. K., which often forms forests of considerable 

 extent. From this palm is made the "Miel de Palma " so much used 

 as a syrup on ships and at hotels. 



Dr. Rose made extensive shipments of living cacti. Most of the 

 material is of species new to American collections and quite a number 

 have not before been in cultivation, while some are new to science. 

 In addition, formalin and herbarium material was obtained in abun- 

 dance. His collection represents over 1,000 numbers, consisting not 

 only of cacti, but ferns, grasses, mosses, marine algae, parasitic fungi, 

 and other miscellaneous groups which Dr. Rose believed would be 

 of help to various specialists. 



BOTANICAL EXPLORATIONS IN NEW MEXICO AND TEXAS 



During August and September, 1914, Mr. Paul C. Standley of 

 the division of plants of the National Museum and Mr. H. C. Bollman 

 of the Smithsonian Institution spent nearly five weeks camping in 

 northern New Mexico at the Brazos Canyon in Rio Arriba County. 

 This locality is about 30 miles south of the Colorado line and about 

 half way across the state. While the trip was a private undertaking 

 primarily for vacation purposes, a representative collection of the 

 plant life of the region was made. 



The Brazos Canyon is a gorge through which the Rio Brazos, a 

 tributary of the Chama River, runs for several miles. Near Tierra 

 Amarilla, where it flows into the Chama, the Brazos is a broad 

 stream, with only a moderately rapid current. As one follows up its 

 course the stream gradually becomes more rapid, and the valley 

 narrower. Eight or nine miles west of Tierra Amarilla there rises 

 on the north side of the valley a high mesa, with an abrupt escarp- 

 ment of naked reddish rocks, and one finally comes to a gigantic 

 fissure in the escarpment from which the Brazos issues. Here, for 

 several miles, the stream runs through a deep gorge, bounded by 

 bare, perpendicular granitic walls from two to three thousand feet 

 high, in places less than a hundred yards apart. This chasm is 



