54 MEXICO, CENTEAL AMEEICA, WEST INDIES. 



general aspect of the landscape. Nevertheless in spring their arid plains are 

 suddenly decked with many-coloured flowers, the mezquite shrub is covered 

 with a pale yellow blossom, clusters of white bells shoot up from amid the glossy 

 foliage of the yucca, the shingly tracts are enlivened by the bright red petals of 

 the mamillaria. Thanks to its soft velvety turf, Europe may have more cheerful, 

 but assuredly not more brilliant, grassy meads. 



But this " flowery season " is soon over, and nature presently resumes its dull 

 and sullen aspect, relieved here and there only by a few thickets of delicate green 

 thorny shrubs. The prevailing species are the mezquites [algarrohia gJanduIosa)^ 

 for the most part very different from those found in the United States, but, like 

 them, still exuding a substance resembling gum-arabic. In New Mexico they are 

 mere bushes whose stems branch ofE directly from the root ; in south Texas they 

 develop into shrubs ; but within Mexican territory, and especially in Sonora, they 

 assume the proportions of veritable trees, here and there grouped in large groves. 



Elsewhere, notably on the slopes of the Western Sierra Madre, in the states 

 of Chihuahua, Sonora and Sinaloa, the oak is the prevailing species ; hence the term 

 encinal, or " oak lands," applied in these regions to any extensive wooded tracts. 

 The term chaparral^ which, strictly speaking, should be applied only to the deci- 

 duous oak, is in the same way given by the northern Mexicans to all spaces under 

 scrub or brushwood ; in ordinary language every grove or thicket is a chaparral, 

 even where the mezquites and large cactus are the dominant types. 



Except along the river banks fringed by poplars and willows, the only woody 

 plants in certain northern regions of Mexico are the cactus. Of these the most 

 remarkable are th.e j^itahayas, which assume the form of thorny fluted columns. The 

 branches stand out at right angles from the stem, and then grow parallel with it, thus 

 forming prodigious candelabra, some of which are 35 or 40 and even 60 feet high. 



Other species are reckoned by the hundred which have adapted themselves to 

 the arid climate by developing an abundance of sap in their thick leaves, and 

 protecting themselves against animals by thorny armour. Amongst these fantastic 

 plants there are some which at a distance might be taken for blocks of greenish stone. 



In certain places the ground is completely cai^peted as by a kind of green 

 sward with dwarf agaves, which are still known by their old Aztec name, ixtle or 

 ixtU. The larger species of this useful plant, whose fibre is used for weaving 

 coarse textile fabrics, and whose sap serves for the preparation of brandy and other 

 national drinks, flourish especially in the inland states of San Luis Potosi, 

 Zacatecas, Durango, Aguascalientes, and even on the colder plateaux. In many 

 districts the general character of the scenery is determined by these agave planta- 

 tions, with their enormous thorny leaves, associated with hedges of other species, 

 such as the drganos, so named from their resemblance to the pipes of an organ. 



The three superimposed zones, ranging from the foot of the mountains to the 

 upland valleys of the plateaux, are characterised by special types, which impart 

 to the several floras their distinctive features. Thus on the coastlands of the hot 

 zone are seen extensive savannahs of dense herbage, magnificent palm groves and 

 all the trees of the Antilles noted for their fruits or flowers, their wood, bark or 



