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The Vegetation of Vieques Island 
By Percy WILson 
The island of Vieques is situated about seven miles 
southeast of the eastern end of Porto Rico, from which it 
is separated by the Vieques Passage. From Punta Arenas 
on the west to the eastern end, Vieques is about nineteen 
or twenty miles in length; its greatest width is about five 
miles. 
“The greater part of the island is made up of a soft 
brown eruptive rock with occasional outcroppings of a 
harder bluish rock, very similar to the formation of the 
Virgin Islands lying to the eastward. Some of the larger 
peninsulas projecting from the south side and all that 
portion of the eastern end of the island that is separated 
from the main body by bays and salinas, are composed of a 
| fossiliferous limestone. 
1e surface is very hilly, often steep, but seldom pre- 
cipitous. Few of the hills attain an altitude of over five 
hundred feet, the highest being Cerro Ventana on the 
southwestern end, where a height of one thousand one 
hundred and twenty-five feet was recorded by the aneroid 
barometer. The summits of these hills are rocky and 
covered for the most part with trees and shrubs; the sides 
are usually of good soil and under cultivation, or used for 
pasturing. 
“The cultivation of sugar-cane has recently been carried 
on very extensively, so that at the present time the western 
two thirds of the island is practically all in cane from the 
seacoast to the rocky tops of the low hills. The eastern 
portion of the island is given over to pasturage, but most 
of it is at present being neglected and is growing into brush 
and thickets. This part is also much drier and more rocky 
and is densely wooded with smail trees. ‘Throughout the 
island there is little growth underneath the trees in the 
rocky forests.”* 
* J. A. Shafer. Botanical Exploration on the Island of Vieques, Porto Rico. 
Jour. N. Y. Bot. Gard. 15: 103-105. 1914. 
