62 



Garden and Forest. 



Number 416. 



A Botanical Journey in Texas. — I. 



DURING the month of May copious and almost con- 

 tinuous rains fell throughout most of Texas, and 

 from Louisiana to Mexico all farm crops were growing 

 luxuriantly and all nature was rejoicing, when, on the 

 second day of June, I started to make a long and tortuous 

 botanical trip from San Antonio to El Paso, a distance of 

 over six hundred miles. Western Texas was at its best, 

 the trees and plants dressed in full holiday attire, with new 

 shoots longer and more drooping than they are in drier 

 seasons, leaves greener, flowers larger and handsomer. 



Lovers of nature must have noticed the beauty of all 

 forest scenery in the full growing time of the trees, when 

 the varying tints of green in the newer leaves mingle with 

 the deeper hue of those that are fully developed, and no 

 such lover would soon tire of contemplating a grove of 

 Yellow Locust in June and after a drenching rain has 

 washed their leaves. 



Botanizing from the windows of swiftly moving railway 

 cars is too careless observation for the purposes of science, 

 except in regard to well-known and conspicuous species, 

 which, of course, may be recognized. As far west as San An- 

 tonio occurs the French Mulberry (Callicarpa), the Box-Elder, 

 which will be found at intervals as far as the mountain canons 

 of central New Mexico and southern Colorado, and the 

 Honey Locust which about San Antonio is either native or 

 naturalized. Wild China or Soap-berry, Sapindus, in full 

 blossom, is common in woods throughout our entire 

 journey. 



After we cross Medina River the ripe crimson fruit of 

 Rhus microphylla renders that shrub conspicuous and adds 

 variety and beauty to the forest scenery. Travelers who 

 have been over this route in times of long-continued 

 droughts are now surprised to see in the clearing of every 

 ranchman and small farmer luxuriant fields of rank tall Corn 

 and other grains growing in a region which they had 

 thought to be only a dreary waste. A stop for a day at 

 Sabinal gave me an opportunity to botanize along the river 

 and among the hills. Sabinal signifies a Cypress grove, 

 and the Cypress-trees grow along the river. Some indi- 

 vidual trees are three to four feet in diameter. Most of 

 them, however, like the Buttonball -trees of Kansas, have 

 outlived their usefulness. Yet there are thrifty and vigor- 

 ous trees here, which, left to themselves, will long pre- 

 serve the significance of the name of the river and that of 

 the little village near by. 



Going from Sabinal we soon reach the valley of the 

 Leona and of the near-by Neuces River. The valleys of 

 those rivers are the lowest of any river valleys between the 

 San Antonio and the Rio Grande Rivers. Irrigated farm- 

 ing there is already begun, and, doubtless, will be carried 

 on to still greater success. Near Nueces River large Tree 

 Acacias appear. That river, too, is about the eastern limit 

 of Willow Catalpa, Chilopsis, which we shall see at different 

 points far up into New Mexico. So Fallugia, with a still 

 more northern range, grows southward to the Nueces. 



A wide, deep and swiftly flowing current of water fills 

 the river-bed, where two years ago I walked for miles with- 

 out seeing a drop of water, and where on the dry sands I 

 collected Fallugia, the small-fruited Walnut, other shrubs 

 and many rare smaller plants. The country here assumes 

 a more rough and mountainous aspect. The shrubs are 

 sturdier in their growth and the flora generally is changing. 

 The almost ubiquitous Mesquit is nearly everywhere and 

 heavily loaded with young fruit. Because the Mesquitsome- 

 times grows on the most barren hills it must not be supposed 

 that the species does not recognize better opportunities 

 when they present themselves. Those individuals now so 

 forlorn, or, at least, their ancestors, have seen better days. 

 In such localities they simply persist from a time when, 

 perhaps, different climatic conditions prevailed here, or 

 before a nomadic husbandry had made their homes a prac- 

 tical desert. Indiscriminate general grazing will make any 

 country a desert. 



No station on the Southern Pacific Railway, so easily 

 accessible as Spofford, gives botanical tourists opportunity 

 to find Acacia tortuosa. It grows a few rods above the 

 station on the right-hand side of the road as one goes up. 

 The flower-clusters of this species are very like those of A. 

 Farnesiana, but its generic habit and its long Mesquit-like 

 pods lead to its easy identification. It is hardly fair treat- 

 ment of a peculiar and handsome shrub to call this species, 

 as some botanists do, Mexican, as it is by nativity and resi- 

 dence a United States species. If the tourist can stop off a 

 day at Spofford he will have time to visit Las Moras River, 

 where he may find the remarkable semi-tropical white Water- 

 lily, and the largest of our species of Castalia, C. ampla. 

 I found it in the waters of that river, just in the rear of Fort 

 Clark, and in full blossom on the twenty-second day of 

 January, 1893, which, so far as I am informed, is the first 

 time that the species has been identified as growing in 

 Texas, or in North America, outside of Mexico. And if the 

 tourist be curious in the so-called small things of science, 

 he may chance to find in the same locality pods of the 

 beautiful Red Bean, Sophora secundiflora, containing eight 

 beans. The pods are sometimes fitted to hold only a single 

 bean. 



My stop at Del Rio was opportune to inspect the early 

 summer flora, as I had already the late summer flora of 

 that region. The Yellow Water-lily (Nymphsea), so com- 

 mon in the waters of San Filipe River, at Del Rio, varies 

 somewhat from the more eastern forms of that species. 

 The tabs of its leaves are produced, and end in an acumi- 

 nation giving to the leaves an elliptical outline. San Filipe 

 River is about the southern limit of Eysenhardtia ortho- 

 carpa, with its upright fruit, as indicated by its name, while 

 the pods of its southern congener, E. amorphoides, are 

 reflexed. Nogal, Juglans rupestris, is very common along 

 the river, where it sometimes grows into a large tree. 

 Its fruit is small, but two or three times as large as that of 

 the shrubby form. 



From beyond the Sabinal to beyond the Pecos, at least, 

 the honey-yielding shrub of western Texas, which Mexi- 

 cans call Huajillo, and botanists know as a Pithecolo- 

 bium, grows in great abundance. The groves of this 

 species in flowering time are the favorite pastures of the 

 bees, and at other times they are hardly less pastures for 

 domestic animals, which largely subsist upon its leaves 

 and fruit. Meanwhile the species finds time to manufac- 

 ture in large quantities a strong and pleasant perfume. 

 This species, Acacia Farnesiana, one or two other native 

 Acacias and two or three species of Mimosa yield from 

 their flowers such an abundance of strongly fragrant vola- 

 tile oil that it might be profitable for perfumers to utilize 

 them. 



Both species of Siphonoglossa near Del Rio were in blos- 

 som at the time of my visit. They are curiously made and 

 good-looking plants. Near them were growing Krameria 

 canescens, another Krameria and a handsome shrubby 

 Lippia producing its flowering stems in whorls around the 

 main axis. XanthrimaTexanum, a handsome yellow-flow- 

 ered composite, is common throughout central and western 

 Texas, extending northward to southern Kansas. Chrysop- 

 sis villosa is an inhabitant of most of the region of the 

 plains. It is a variant species. Several of its forms have 

 been exalted to named varieties, an honor of which no one 

 of them is really worthy. 



Trichocoronis Wrightii, a western composite with vari- 

 ously cut leaves and rayless white flowers, is a plant of 

 devious ways of living. It floats in the river, produc- 

 ing rootlets at the nodes of its stems. In shallow waters 

 it roots in the soft bottoms. Where no water is to be found 

 it grows equally well in the rich limon. The species prob- 

 ably located at Del Rio on account of the perennial waters 

 of the San Filipe. The handsome Centaurea Americana of 

 Arkansas and the Indian Territory extends through Texas 

 to Mexico, and the small-growing Virginian Thistle bears 

 it company all the way. Cuscuta squamata, one of the 

 Love vines, grows abundantly on the alkaline soils of 



