22 THE WEST AMERICAN SCIENTIST. 



was insufficient for determination, Watson classifies them in five groups, namely: — 1, 

 introduced species, twelve ; 2, species ranging from the Atlantic to the Pacific States 

 of North America, nine ; 3, species found throughout California, or at least as far 

 north as San Francisco, forty -nine ; 4, species found in Southern California, below 

 Los Angeles, or in Arizona, eighteen ; and, 5, species peculiar to the island, twenty- 

 one. 



Last spring Mr. E. L. Greene visited the island, and he publishes the particu- 

 lars of his week's sojourn there, together with tiie botanical results, in the Bulletin 

 of the California Academy of Sciences, from which it appears that he collected 

 fourteen species that were not in Dr. Palmer's collection. Of these seven are Cali- 

 fornian, some of them having a wider distribution ; four are common European 

 weeds, and two are described as new species ; whilst one, a seedling Arctostaphylos, 

 is indeterminable. 



Guadalupe has never been inhabited, according to Greene, except very tempor- 

 arily, by shipwrecked or seal-hunting saiior., or fugitives from Mexico. But since 

 the beginning of 1884 a small band of some forty Lower Californian soldiers has 

 been stationed there by the Mexican Government, ' to prevent the wholesale slaugh- 

 ter of the goats, of which there are many thousands still on the island, notwith- 

 standing the fact that for some two or three years prior to 1884 many a cargo of goat 

 skins and tallow had been taken to San Diego.' 



In this, as in so many other remote islands, goats were originally introduced for 

 the purpose of supplying food to shipwrecked or passing mariners ; and the effect in 

 many instances has been the almost complete extirpation of the indigenious vegeta- 

 tion. How long ago goats were first introduced into Guadalupe is uncertain, though 

 l)robably towards the end of the last century. Dr. Palmer mentions them among 

 the agents afifecting the vegetation, yet without any specific account of their having 

 proved destructive. Greene, however, specially alludes to the favorable efi'ect on 

 the vegetation 'in the very best par: of the island' the small garrison has had, as 

 the goats, in consequence of being constantly hunted, avoid the part where the 

 soldiers encamp. 



From the figures given above, and the relationships of the endemic species, it is 

 evident that the flora of Guadalupe Island is essentially Californian, as distinguish- 

 ed from the Mexican flora, to whici bslon^s the vegetation of the in cervening penin- 

 sula of Lower California. Respecting the plants which by their abundance or 

 jjrominence gave character to vegetation, Palmer says: — "The 'Sagebrush' and 

 'grease-woods' of the Basin [the 'Great Basin' of California] are represented by 

 an Artemisia and an Atriplex, which share with a Franseri i in covering large tracts, 

 and in XH-otecting the soil and the smaller animals from the winds and sun. Trees 

 are numerous over much of the island, chiefly coniferous : a pine, a juniper, and a 

 cypress, and a small oak. To th'ise is to be added the palm, which is frequent in 

 the southern canyons, growing to a height of 40 feet." Among introduced plants 

 Erodium cicutarium was more abundant than any other plan: in the island, being 

 found everywhere. The herbaceous and shrubby endemic plants belong to genera 

 represented in California, or exclusively Californian and eastward of it, and the 

 species are more closely allied to those of the Californian region. The pine is a 



