Notes on Trinidad plants 
Epw. H. GRAHAM 
In the fall of 1924, on his return to the States from a sojourn 
and collecting trip in the vicinity of Kartabo, British Guiana, 
the writer spent a few days at the island of Trinidad, British 
West Indies. August 17th and 18th, 1924, were spent in visiting 
points in the northern part of the island, with headquarters at 
Port-of-Spain. Plants were collected at four localities as follows: 
(1) vicinity of Blue Basin, 6 miles north of Port-of-Spain; (2) 
Valencia, 20 miles due east of Port-of-Spain; (3) 6 miles north- 
east of Sangre Grande along the Toco road; and (4) Balandra 
Bay on the rocky exposed east coast about 10 miles from the 
northeast extremity of the island. All of these localities are in 
the northern quarter of the island and as the present notes rep- 
resent a hasty collection from the region they may best serve as 
a list of the plants collected and an indication of the most con- 
spicuous and common plants to be met there. The specimens, 
representing 46 species, are now in the Herbarium of the Car- 
negie Museum at Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. 
Trinidad is the most southerly of the West Indian Islands, 
with a flora, fauna, and geology closely allied to that of northern 
South America, from which it is separated by the Gulf of Paria, 
the marginal extensions of Trinidad being less than 20 miles 
from Venezuelan shores, with which there was at one time a 
Probable connection. The island is situated between 10° 3’ and 
10° 50’ North Latitude and 60° 55’ and 61° 56’ West Longi- 
tude.! Its average length from north to south is about 69 miles, 
its breadth 54 miles. Three parallel mountain ranges traverse 
the island from east to west, the highest being that in the north, 
composed mostly of pre-Tertiary, metamorphosed, sedimen- 
tary rocks rising to more than 3000 feet. To the south lies an 
undulating blanket of Tertiary and Recent sediments with in- 
iers of Cretaceous age. Igneous rock is found only at one place 
on the north coast near Toco. In the center of the islands is a 
range of mountains running diagonally from the southwest to 
the northeast rising to 1000 feet, and in the south there 1s a 
broad belt of low mountains seldom rising above 100 feet in 
"For a general description of Trinidad see Handbook of Trinidad and 
Tobago. Port-of-Spain, 1924. 
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