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thickly swollen middle aged plants and the less common 
very old plants with a long slender prolongation of the trunk 
above the swollen mass. An excursion across this region to 
Mantua was made December 28 and 29 in a ‘‘valante,”’ the 
prevailing conveyance of this vicinity, which afforded an unex- 
pectedly comfortable method of securing specimens of the plants 
of this section of the island. 
From Mantua which, aside from the fertile lands bor- 
dering the river of the same name, is surrounded by a bar- 
ren region similar to that described above, I went afoot to 
Arroyos on the northwest coast, crossing a low flat ridge, 
once a pine forest of large tall trees of the three-leaved species. 
At this time very few live trees were to be seen, while 
hundreds of leafless ones were still standing. As there were no 
evidences of fire, in fact the ground covering was too scant to 
produce heat enough to kill such large trees, I was at a loss to 
account for such total destruction, until my Cuban companion 
explained that it was due to the strong wind of a previous 
cyclone. Beyond this pine land the plain gradually descends. 
Here richer land with great groves of ‘palma cana” and pasture 
lands with thickets of taller shrubs and larger trees extend to the 
little seaport, which was surrounded by mangrove thickets. 
We stayed here long enough to get some supper, returning to 
Mantua during the night, thus making it possible to get an early 
start next morning for Guane. 
The limestone sierra formation which has its southwestern 
termination in two large rock masses, one near each of the towns 
of Guane and Mendoza and bearing the name of the adjacent 
town, attains a height of probably less than 1,000 feet and is 
composed of a very hard black limestone which is very much 
broken and deeply fissured, with perpendicular precipices often 
several hundred feet high and eroded into strangely fantastic 
forms with very sharp apices. There are few pockets of red soil 
of any extent among these hills and their general aspect is barren, 
but much scattered vegetation, principally shrubs and small 
trees, secure a foothold in the rock crevices. Two very charac- 
teristic trees are common on the steep sides of these rocks, the 
