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The armament of this plant is remarkable; all the young joints 
observed were densely spiny, while the older joints become 
entirely spineless, and this spineless condition is continued down 
the trunk about half way to the ground, its lower half being 
covered with most vicious spines up to 6 inches long; it would 
appear that we have here a plant which has use for a spiny 
armament on its young parts and on its oldest, but not on those 
parts of medium age. The straight upright stem and widely 
spreading branches reminded us of semaphores, and we gave 
the plant the name of semaphore cactus. 
r. Cox also ne for us a visit to the copper-mining town, 
El ae and a day was spent in that vicinity studying the 
flora of rocky and ne hills, where many small plants of 
interest to us occur and where we saw the largest grove ever 
observed by us of the cashew-nut or “marafion’’ (Anacardium 
occidentale), portions of the fruit of which are roasted and eaten 
like peanuts or almonds. 
Proceeding westward by steamer during the night of March 
26, our next base was at Ensenada de Mora, the port of the Cape 
Cruz Sugar Company, located about thirty miles east of Cape 
Cruz, where an extensive area of arable land lies between the 
sea and the western end of the Sierra Maestra and where we 
were received with great cordiality and hospitality by Mr. George 
M. Boote, administrator, and Mr. George R. Buchanan, assistant 
administrator, of the sugar company. We remained here four 
days and studied the flora of the coastal woodlands and thickets 
and that of hillsides and mountain ‘‘arroyos”’ up to altitudes 
of about 1,100 feet, horses and guides being supplied through the 
kindness of Mr. Boote. There is an abundant flow of pure water 
in certain of the mountain valleys and in them we found a 
luxuriant and varied vegetation, including many ferns and orchids 
and flowering trees and shrubs in great variety. In places the 
valleys are formed by steep cliffs and on these several plants of 
rarest being the linear-leaved Plumiera, a small tree of the dog- 
bane family, profusely covered with large white flowers. This 
genus has its greatest development in the West Indies, many 
