March iS, 1S96.] 



Garden and Forest. 



113 



tainty. With the constant progress in organic chemistry 



there does not seem any reason why any desired odor 



should not be artificially produced. , 



Elizabeth, N.J. J.N.Gerard. 



A Botanical Journey in Texas. — III. 



ALPINE is a pleasant mountain-girt town of two or three 

 L hundred Americans, and, perhaps, of as many Mexi- 

 cans. It is the county seat of Brewster County. This 

 year it was plain that the town and surrounding country 

 had been left out in the almost universal distribution of 

 rains over Texas, still in damp places numerous plants were 

 in blossom. The little Zinnia grandiflora and taller Ber- 

 landiera lyrata are common, and as both species are found 

 in Kansas they were old friends. More gladly I found 

 here, for the first time, the rather handsome Martynia fra- 

 grans, Toloache of Mexicans. Grewsome tales are told of 

 its vicious nature, and Mexican girls are said to use it to 

 rid themselves of their rivals in love, since the plant, it is 

 claimed, produces gradual insanity and finally death to the 

 victim who eats it. 



In our journey from Alpine to Marfa we crossed in the 

 night the highest point reached by the Southern Pacific 

 Railway between New Orleans and San Francisco, a dis- 

 tance of nearly twenty-five hundred miles. That point, 

 Paisano Pass, is 5,082 feet, and Marfa itself is 4,682 feet 

 above the sea. Its flora, therefore, ma)' be considered 

 alpine in its character. It is the highest mesa that we shall 

 find in the state. The orography of western Texas, while 

 neither grand nor sublime, is interesting and pleasant to see. 

 We are now about seventy-five miles from the Rio Grande, 

 and shall not again see it until near our destination. 



There is a small arroya winding around Marfa. Its 

 sands are not even damp, but along it grow large chimps 

 of Fallugia, now white with its rose-like flowers; huge 

 Yuccas, so tall that their flowers cannot be reached ; the 

 handsome Willow Catalpa and fragrant Acacias. A small 

 solitary Hackberry (Celtis) grows near by, even to fruiting 

 capacity. Its leaves are thick and hard almost as a board, 

 but still doing the tree that bears them their natural service. 

 Care has been taken to collect specimens of Hackberry 

 from Kansas and Missouri to western Texas and New 

 Mexico, to learn finally, if possible, what specific differ- 

 ences may be made of its largely variant forms. 



Near the dry watercourse I found" a few living indi- 

 viduals of a tiny dark red-flowered Oxalis, which botanists 

 hitherto appear to have failed to notice and describe. 

 Microrhamnus ericoides, a queer little thorny shrub, was 

 growing in company with Acacias. It was out of blossom, 

 but well loaded with nearly ripe frui.t. Another species of 

 Zinnia with purplish flowers grows here with Z. grandiflora. 

 It looks as if it was here for its health. The handsome 

 Eupatorium is commoner here than I have seen it else- 

 where ; so are Perezia Wrightii and the little P. nana, the 

 last-named species being very small, but it has learned, 

 with the other members of the genus, to deposit the brown 

 wool at the roots. Dr. Havard's Evening Primrose, QEno- 

 thera Havardi, I met here for the first time. It is a hand- 

 some small-growing species. Just at close of day its bright 

 yellow flowers pop wide open, and almost illumine the 

 surrounding darkness. A low-growing Asclepias begins to 

 appear at Alpine. It bears large clusters of purple flowers. 

 We shall meet it more or less often to New Mexico. 



Populus Fremonti, the commonest western Cottonwood, 

 is now often seen either in cultivation or wild. It is a 

 smaller tree than P. monilifera, with smaller leaves, which 

 are usually truncate at the base, the basal portions being 

 destitute of serratures. The pistillate forms are now loaded 

 with fruit, which is dropping. The copious light down 

 attached to the seeds is a fine plaything for the wind, which 

 scatters them everywhere to the annoyance of the people, 

 who should plant out only staminate trees, which bear no 

 seeds. They might easily raise such trees from cuttings of 

 trees of that form. 



Hoffmannseggia stricta is the most abundant species ol 



that genus over the entire alkaline region of the south- 

 west. Its tuberous roots are collected and eaten roasted 

 by Mexicans. It is sometimes called "Wild Potato." 

 Mexicans call it " Camote del Raton," which being inter- 

 preted is The Rat's Potato, alluding to the wood rat of 

 this region, which loves this root as well as the natives and 

 eats it as readily, and unroasted. This species is becoming 

 shy in seed-bearing, perhaps because it propagates itself by 

 its roots as well as by its seeds, and the two methods 

 seldom long exist harmoniously in the same plant. 

 Lepachys Tagetes is common along our entire route. It 

 grows in the driest places if it is necessary, but, like all 

 sensible plants, preferring more favorable conditions. It is 

 a lower and more rigid plant than its congeners, with 

 shorter rays that are often purple. The species extends 

 northward to Colorado, and in Kansas to the Saline River. 



Riddellia tagetina is one of the most common composites 

 from the lower Rio Grande region to Colorado, and to 

 south-western Kansas, where I have seen the prairies of 

 Clark County yellow with its flowers. It often assumes a 

 rounded conical form, with its yellow flowers half-hidden 

 among the green leaves, when it is very handsome. The 

 large-flowered Lepidium alysoides is found at this station, 

 its clustered stems, when in full bloom, often presenting a 

 mass of white flowers a foot or more in diameter. Tribulus 

 maximus, a widely distributed species growing in Cuba 

 and Florida to Mexico and California, and northward to 

 Colorado, and in Kansas to the thirty-ninth parallel, is very 

 abundant in all this region. It is a prostrate plant, often 

 spreading three to four feet, with three to five pairs of leaf- 

 lets, and bearing diurnal small yellow flowers, succeeded 

 by a bur-like fruit ; hence its generic name. Its south- 

 western congener, T. grandiflora, has a more limited range 

 in the United States. It is more erect in habit, with five 

 to seven pairs of larger leaflets and large orange-red flow- 

 ers. This species is very handsome when in blossom, ami 

 is sometimes seen in cultivation. 



In the lowlands, as we have come up from the Nueces 

 River, thousands of stately Yuccas grow. Their wand-like 

 stems and large lily flowers gave, as we passed them, a 

 scene of chaste beauty not soon to be forgotten by those 

 who from the car-windows observed them. There are few 

 more showy native plants in cultivation or wild, in Texas, 

 or in the country, than the golden-flowered Columbine, 

 Aquilegia chrysantha. It is found in western Texas and 

 extends into New Mexico. The Tree Cactus, or Cane Cac- 

 tus, Opunlia arborescens, enjoys the dry but mild and 

 healthful climate of the elevated plains of western Texas, 

 and of the region northward to Colorado. The abundant 

 and, when ripe, yellow fruit of this species makes it almost 

 as conspicuous in late summer as its handsome purple 

 flowers do in early summer. 



Among many rare and peculiar plants of western Texas 

 is Dry Whisky, Mamillaria fissurata. Mexicans know it as 

 "Peyote." This queer Cactus is said to be a powerful 

 intoxicant. Nature gives us so many stimulants that it 

 almost seems that they are made for use. The common Rl is 

 tletoe, Phoradendron, is abundant and grows to a large si/.e 

 iii) the western Cottonwood from lower down the river to 

 New Mexico. Its stems are sometimes two or more feci 

 long. In Texas this species, including variant forms, grows 

 upon Hackberry. species of Elms, differenl ' *aks, Mesquit, 

 Ash, Osage Orange, Cottonwood and Forstiera. I have 

 never seen it growing upon Apple-trees, as it does in some 

 more eastern states. It is sometimes so voracious as to 

 kill all limbs upon which it grows above its point of union 

 with them. Botanists are, doubtless, in error who think- 

 that this species comes into Texas from the west ; it is much 

 more common in central and eastern than it is in western 

 Texas. It grows in the Indian Territory, Arkansas, south- 

 east Kansas, Missouri and eastward across the country. 



Ilouttuynia California is the name of a remarkably made 

 western plant. It is not likely to be found so far from the 

 river as Marfa, but it is common along the Rio Gr; 

 from Texas up as far in New Mexico, at least, as Albu- 



