May 2, 1894.] 



Garden and Forest. 



173 



volcano. Upon my presenting- to the proprietor a letter 

 from my host in Zapotlan, a room was hospitably placed at 

 my disposal, while I should explore' the neighboring bar- 

 rancas and mountains. 



My first attempt to find the volcano was unsuccessful. 

 Among forests and foot-hills at its base I fell in with two 

 Indians, who led me across Beltran, and put me into a 

 faint trail, which they seemed to think led to the volcano. 

 I climbed for three hours, and ever the trail grew fainter, 

 and ever there yawned between me and the volcano the 

 impassable barranca, till I found myself in dense thickets 

 of Ceanothus azureus, near the summit of a mountain spur. 

 I was on the Nevado again. Seven hours I clambered 

 over that mountain-side without water and in the heat of 

 June, yet found absolutely nothing to collect, nor saw 

 vestiges of many plants which were to spring up later. 



On the following morning at daybreak I was leaving the 

 hacienda with an Indian charged to show me the right 

 trail. By nine o'clock I was breasting the steep slope, 

 first up through heavy forests, then up through more open 

 deer parks, where I started up a herd of' deer, then up along 

 the narrow crests of ascending ridges, till finally at one 

 o'clock I stood on an open height close beside the upper 

 cone of the volcano. On the one hand were the upper 

 slopes of the Nevado, verdant with springing grass and 

 scattered groves of Pine, gilded by the tropic sunlight, and 

 lying serene and silent ; on the other, in extreme contrast, 

 lay a scene of desolation and death. Apparently not more 

 than half a mile away, beyond a field of naked rocks sown 

 in wildest confusion, among which no indications of life 

 appeared, rose the huge volcano, ashen gray in color. 

 From various vents among the ledges near the summit 

 smoke was issuing, and about the vents could be seen de- 

 posits of sulphur. As I closely scanned the volcano at so 

 short a distance, it seemed entirely practicable to climb in 

 safety to its very top. But time was lacking, and witnesses, 

 so I turned homeward. 



On the topmost ridges were found several individuals of 

 a Yucca strange to me, and not yet in flower. Its stem 

 was simple, a foot thick, four to six feet in height, and 

 crowned with numerous leaves two feet long, and a widely 

 and numerously branching panicle, ten or fifteen feet high. 

 Here was collected Valeriana subincisa, with soft, woody 

 stems six to fifteen feet long, reclining on shrubs, etc. 

 Ribes Jorullensis, forming thickets ten to fifteen feet high, 

 was abundantly fruiting. To appease thirst I ate freely of 

 the black berries, which were not unpalatable, but within 

 three hours bitterly repented having done so, for they 

 proved a swift and violent purgative. An hour after night- 

 fall I entered through the portal of the hacienda, pleased to 

 be able to testify, against the admonitions given me in the 

 morning, that it was really possible for one to reach the 

 volcano and return on the same day. 



San Marcos yielded me a mule-load of plants ; and in its 

 deep, wet glens were seen a number of strange Ferns and 

 other interesting plants, which would not be ready for the 

 press till autumn. The heat and increasing rains rendered 

 at inexpedient to go further down into the hot lands ; so I 

 returned to Zapotlan, and soon after pushed back through 

 deepening mire to Guadalajara, and the plants claiming 

 attention there. 



TEQUILA. 



As has already been explained, the course of vegetation 

 in Jalisco reaches its height during September. All through 

 the winter months the collector will meet with a few plants 

 in flower. These are chiefly ligneous species, either deni- 

 zens of mountain-forests or of the warm seclusion of bar- 

 rancas and of the warmer coast regions. A succession of 

 these extend their flowering season into April and May, the 

 driest and hottest period of the year ; and to their number 

 are added not a few perennial herbs, mostly with tuberous 

 roots — herbs which have the strange habit of shooting up 

 and flowering out of soil hard-baked and dry as dust. 

 Other perennials, more numerous, spring out of the warm 



earth under the influence of the earliest scattering showers ; 

 and by the time the soil is well moistened and softened by 

 increasing rains all the annuals are vegetating apace. 

 Thus, in Jalisco's calendar of seasons, July is the vernal 

 month, and midsummer falls in September. 



At this time of teeming blooms I was following up in the 

 barranca near Guadalajara clews to several plants greatly 

 desired for my distribution, when it became apparent that 

 in this uppermost barranca I was working about their out^ 

 posts, or near the limit of their range, therefore I lost no 

 time in moving farther down the River Santiago to Tequila, 

 some forty miles distant, and near the centre of its won- 

 derful barranca system. Dr. Palmer in 1886 had found this 

 district proportionally richer in new species than any other, 

 and I, too, had also spent ten days there to good advan- 

 tage earlier in the summer. Here, now, for a month from 

 the 21st of September, the best month of the year for a bot- 

 anist, I found myself surrounded by so many interesting 

 plants that the most incessant activity was necessary to se- 

 cure my complement of specimens of all. 



The town of Tequila is on the line of travel between 

 Guadalajara and the seaport of San Bias. It is famous as 

 the centre of the manufacture of the liquor called Vino de 

 Tequila, or simply Tequila, a strongly alcoholic liquor, 

 which is distilled from the roasted crowns of a species of 

 Agave, or Maguey, the plantations of which occupy nearly 

 all the arable land for miles around the town, giving to the 

 landscape a bluish-green color. Tequila lies at the north- 

 west base of a forest-covered mountain, nearly 9,000 feet 

 high. This Sierra de Tequila is dominated by a pyramid 

 of naked rock, which rises in a singulas manner out of a 

 great gulf near the summit, and is nearly encircled by a 

 wooded crest scarcely less elevated than itself. West of 

 the town, and some five hundred feet higher, is an uneven 

 mesa, whose scarped verge frowns over the town, the cliffs 

 and their talus offering shelter to woody growths. A mile 

 or two north of the town the undulating maguey fields end 

 abruptly, and the surface drops into a vast abyss fifteen 

 hundred feet deep, the barranca of Tequila. Its semicircle 

 of precipitous rock is two or three miles in extent. From 

 the foot of the cliffs, slopes, partly covered with plantations 

 of Agaves and tropical fruits and partly in a state of nature, 

 sweep down to the bottom of the barranca and away 

 through a few miles to the wide and open canon of the 

 great river. Beyond the river wild, rugged slopes rise, with 

 alternating scarp and glade, to a height of 3,000 to 4,000 

 feet, an expanse of utmost grandeur tinted with rich and 

 varied hues. Out of the barranca ledges, here and there, 

 streams of tepid water burst in many-eyed fountains and 

 unite in the bottom to form a raging river. In the depths 

 of the barranca, surrounded by its gardens and Orange- 

 orchards, and with its white pavilions and colonnades half 

 hidden from view by tall Mango-trees, is situated the 

 Hacienda dePortrero. It is connected with the town only by 

 slender and rocky trails. In this great barranca of Tequila 

 the expectations which brought me from Guadalajara were 

 more than realized, for the shaded bases of its cliffs yielded 

 many species not before seen by me. 



Pre-eminent for beauty among the plants found in the 

 Tequila region was the new Tephrosia macrantha (see fig. 3 2, 

 p. 175), a shrub six to ten feet tall, which bears at the end of 

 its branches, in diffuse panicles a foot in length, flowers 

 shaded purple and white, which are in the way of Sweet 

 Peas and nearly as large. For weeks it lights up the thickets 

 of hill-side ravines with masses of pleasing color. 



Charlotte, Vt. C. G. Plillgk. 



A house and grounds to be picturesque and interesting in 

 the highest degree must suggest the idea of necessity, show- 

 ing the devotion of the builder rather than mere luxury. We 

 need to see the honest and naked life here and there protrud- 

 ing. What is a fort without any foe before it, or that never 

 has sustained a siege ? The man whose purse is always full, 

 and who can meet all demands, though he employs the most 

 famous artists, can never make the most interesting country- seat. 

 He does not carve from near enough to the bone. — Thoreau, 



