April 26, 1893.] 



Garden and Forest. 



183 



country house, a few miles south of the station of San Bartolo, 

 my friends and I have been entertained from time to time, as 

 had been Drs. Parry and Palmer a dozen years before, and 

 were given guides and transportation over the estate, whether 

 our object was the pursuit of game, deer, turkeys, etc., or a 

 search for plants. Of wonderful interest to me was the haci- 

 enda of Angostura. A large stream of water has been brought 

 through the barrier of hills above the hacienda-house by 

 means of cuts and tunnels, siiowing excellent engineering. 

 Carried in open ditches over the fat, black soil of the adjacent 

 plain, this water ensures for Angostura unfailing crops of 

 Wheat and Corn. Where the waste water of this stream flows 

 down the valley, it gives rise to a swamp, many miles in extent, 

 of the Mexican Cypress, Taxodium mucronatum. The trees 

 are immense; a trunk diameter of ten feet is not rare ; and the 

 great trunks are often undivided for a long distance from the 

 base, Gomg from the house to the station of San Bartolo, our 

 road, after passing the tillage, enters a Mesquite forest with la- 

 goons. The trees are at first of the largest size for the species, 

 two feet in diameter, and are hoary with Tillandsias ; but they 

 become sparse and stimted as we near the station, and the soil 

 becomes white with alkali and is bare, except as it is dotted 

 with clumps of Atriplex, Suaeda, etc. On this white plain, a 

 short way east of the station, when, for the first fime, we alight 

 there in the dim light of the early morning, our attention is 

 arrested by columns of steam arising from pools and streams 

 rimmed with green sod. We stop to explore the vicinity, and 

 it requires several days to secure all the plants, new or rare, 

 which it yields us. In little open meadows, lying here and 

 there amid scattered groves of Mesquite and Juniper, we 

 come upon these streams of warm water, which are remarka- 

 bly transparent and show a bluish tinge. These issue from 

 subterranean channels, meander a little way on the surface, 

 forming sometimes broad, deep pools, and then abruptly dis- 

 appear from view again. Near by these living streams are 

 long, tortuous, shallow lagoons, fast drying up. Such water as 

 remains in lowest hollows is thick and brown with alkali ; and 

 the dried margins are deeply covered with salts of a dirty- 

 white color. A deathly odor pervades their neighborhood ; 

 dead, gaunt trees stand around, and in the tops of these great 

 ghostly white birds perch, watching over the silent scene and 

 adding to the uncanny feeling we experience here. 



Going on from San Bartolo to the station of Las Tablas, pass- 

 ing on our way another Mesquite-forest, passing a considerable 

 forest of Juniper (Juniperus occidentalis, var. conjugans), and 

 a low flat which is covered with fine deep alkali dust, like a 

 layer of ashes, a soil which is said to be slimy and nasty in the 

 extreme when wet, and which bears, amid crimson-fruited 

 Opuntias, little but a few stunted and half-dead Mesquite-trees, 

 we find ourselves at Las Tablas upon ampler meadows than 

 those of San Bartolo, meadows miles in extent, covered with 

 deep grass, interrupted by belts of Juniper-forest and bounded 

 by gray desert hills of half-bare lime-rock. These meadows 

 appear to rest on a subterranean lake. A tough sod and layer 

 of black soil a few feet in thickness covers mud and water. In 

 the railroad-ditches animals are liable to break through the 

 crust and to be lost. If you dig a hole a few feet deep you 

 may strike upon a water-course and see little fishes passing. 

 Anywhere at intervals over this strange meadow we may come 

 upon a circular pool some fifty feet in diameter, where an un- 

 derground stream comes up to the surface, and from which a 

 stream flows away for a short distance, taking any direction as 

 would appear, and then plunges into the soil. These fountain- 

 pools are so deep that their bottom cannot be discovered, as 

 we peer down through their limpid water. Curious little fishes 

 abound in them ; black they are, with white backs. Around 

 their shallower margins commonly grows a white-flowered 

 Pond-lily (Nymphasa ampla). Upon the verge of pools and 

 brooks Sedges crowd, chiefly Rynchospora mariscus and 

 Carex Pringlei, Bailey, n. sp., and stand six to eight feet high. 



We tramp these meadows for miles and miles through deep 

 Grass, Spartina densiflora, the sharp points of its rigid leaves 

 annoying us greatly. Before us scuttle away half-wild herds 

 of cattle, sleek and fat, herds of horses and mules, whose 

 smooth coats show scarce a saddle-mark, and droves of plump 

 donkeys, whose backs have never known a galling load. In 

 order to obtain a view of the country we mount a rocky hill on 

 the border of the meadow, and there among Tree Cactuses 

 come upon a spot where a tiger-cat has recendy killed a deer, 

 and with the aid of vultures has already disposed of its car- 

 cass. There are found alkali sinks in which few or no plants 

 can grow. In places the soil is quaky ; open pits or dark pools 

 yawn before us ; some of the streams are hard to cross in 

 safety ; we find the body of a horse which has wallowed to his 

 death in the mire ; and from all these comes a slight sense 



of peril which lends excitement to our exploration of the 

 region. 



When we leave Las Tablas and the limits of the hacienda 

 of Angostura the train hurries us for twenty miles over a dusty 

 plain between parallel ranges of dry hills. Here, in sharpest 

 contrast with the green country just left, is presented a scene 

 of the utmost desolation. A thin growth of desert shrubs and 

 stunted trees, with Cactuses, covers the plain. Here are Mes- 

 quites but fifteen feet high whichare venerable with age, hoary 

 and shaggy with lichens and Spanish moss. Everything is 

 draped in this gray, and everything seems to be starved and 

 sickly. This plain and the enclosing hills are a station for 

 Yucca australis (Engelmann), Trelease, and the hill-sides bear 

 that curious thing, Hesperaloe Engelmanni. But beyond Car- 

 denas, the next station, and its billowy, grassy hills, on which 

 Corn-fields appear in autumn, what a change of scene again ! 

 We will let the train go on its way to wind in bewildering 

 curves among these hills and the curious knobs of lime-stone 

 below them, where the strata is set on edge, and will ourselves 

 walk down the trail to Las Canoas, a station a dozen miles dis- 

 tant and nearly a thousand feet below. This we do that we may 

 pass through La Labor, a village of the quaintest and most pic- 

 turesque houses, which are thatched with Palm or Yucca 

 leaves. A little way below the village we descend into a nar- 

 row valley between Oak-covered hills. The soil of this valley 

 is deep and black with humus ; so we find here fields of Corn 

 as dense aiid as tall as the Corn of a Mississippi bottom. 



The Valley of Las Canoas, however, is the most charming 

 spot on all our line. Lying among wooded hills at the head of 

 the great Tamasopo Canon, through which rain-clouds are 

 always, you might think, pouring up to water its grassy slopes 

 and tilled flats, it shows perpetual verdure and unfailing crops. 

 The soil is a red clay loam, and it would seem that the Grape 

 and most other fruits ought to flourish here in perfection. 

 Here, from a hill-side cave, issues a stream of the purest 

 water, and behind the village is a wild and deep barranca con- 

 taining another stream. These waters united have cut through 

 the mountains next ahead of us the wonderful Tamasopo, 

 which has afforded a pass for the railroad. To bring the rail- 

 road up through the mountains from the hacienda of Tama- 

 sopo on the bench next below to this plain of Las Canoas (for 

 the construction of the road advanced from the east to this 

 point) was a great triumph of engineering. Let us go on by 

 train from Las Canoas. Gliding beside the stream, whose 

 course giant Cypresses mark, the train advances cautiously to 

 the gate of the canon. It enters above plunging, boiling 

 waters. Then for eight or nine miles the road-bed has been 

 cut in the rock of the steep mountain-side, or has been laid on 

 walls which spring from far below. On such dizzy heights the 

 train hangs and sways and winds through constantly occurring 

 curves. Where mountain-buttresses interposed, tunnels open 

 a way, till eight are passed. Within the canon long vistas of 

 the wildest mountain-scenery open before us. We awake re- 

 sounding mountain echoes. Below us yawns the fearful gulf. 

 The opposite mountain-side is precipitous in places, in others 

 cut by gorges. It is everywhere covered with a variety of 

 trees, except here and there on the steeps near the summit, 

 where some Indian has built his hut and cleared a plat for Corn 

 or Bananas. Outside the narrow pass the scene shifts again. 

 From our perch, still high on the mountain, we are looking 

 down upon a fertile hacienda, on broad open valleys stretching 

 among low hills, which are covered with heavy tropical forests, 

 on meadows with grazing herds and on broad fields of Corn 

 and Cane. In making the descent from the mountain-side to 

 Tamasopo siding the road turns back upon itself in several 

 long loops. At the foot of the mountain it passes through a 

 heavy forest, in whose shade is a Coffee-plantation. 



Charlotte, vt. C. G. Pringle. 



Foreign Correspondence. 

 Some New Plants. 



Helicom.v illlstris. — This new introduction from the 

 South Sea Islands is in the possession of Mr. W. Bull, of 

 Chelsea, and is likely to be exhibited in the collections of 

 new plants at the forthcoming quinquennial exhibition at 

 Ghent. It is certainly one of the most beautiful plants of 

 the Musa family, and is certain to become a great favorite 

 with growers of beautiful-leaved stove-plants. It has the 

 habit of H. metallica or H. spectabilis ; the leaf-stalks are 

 a foot long and colored bright rose, the blades are a foot 

 long by four inches in width, and they are colored red- 

 purple, with clear rose-pink midrib and veins. Mr. Bull is 



