plantjE nov^ thurberianjE, 303 



Virghika was abundant, in company with a beautiful plant of the sanae order, which 

 proves to be the type of a new genus allied to Thespesia. Near the town of Rayon 

 several trees of Fouquiera spinosa, H. B.K., were found just coming into flower (in 

 October), while the leaves were beginning to fall. The habit of the tree is quite un- 

 like that of F. splendens : the trunk rises three or four feet before throwing out its 

 straggling and crooked branches. The bark of the old branches is yellowish-green ; 

 the flowers are crimson. 



" The country between Magdalena and Rayon is mountainous and impassable by 

 wagons. Between the latter place and Ures, the sombre, rounded gravel hills appear 

 again, and in the valleys between them are large groves of palms. Specimens suffi- 

 cient for the identification of the species were not secured ; the fruit, which contains a 

 sparing sweetish pulp, is gathered in large quantities by the Mexicans. Among these 

 hills an undescribed Gnaiacum was found : also a variety of Hircea septentrionalis,* 

 and a narrow-leaved Jacquinia. At Ures all botanical collections for the year were 

 suspended. Causes which it would be out of place here to mention had brought the 

 party thus far into the interior of Sonora ; and a series of untoward events detained 

 it for many weeks at this place. 



" Christmas at length found us again at Santa Cruz, en route for the Gila. The 

 journey thence to San Diego, on the Pacific, was one of toil and disaster. Portfolios, 

 paper, and everything that could relieve the starving animals, were abandoned, and at 

 length the whole party were making the dreary march across the Colorado desert on 

 foot. Near the western edge of this desert several early (February) flowers were 

 noticed, of which a few scanty specimens were preserved in a pocket note-book ; 

 among them were two new Compositse, one a new Asteroid genus, the other a third 

 Psathyrotes. 



" The considerable collections made while in California were mostly of well-known 

 plants. The return journey to the Rio Grande was commenced in May, 1852. At 

 San Isabel, a new suffruticose, silvery-canescent Hosackia was found upon the rocks. 



* HiRjEA SEPTENTEiONALis, Adr. Juss. Monogr. Malp. 2. p. 309 : var. foliis miuoribus sapissime oblongo- 

 lanceolatis. — H. Coulteri, Planch, in Herb. Hook. ined. "Called GalUneta : the root said to be a specific 

 in syphilis." — This is the same plant as No. 856 of Coulter's Mexican collection, from Sonora Alta, which is 

 named, I believe, by Dr. Planchon, in the Hookerian herbarium, Hircea Coulteri, n. sp. And indeed the 

 specimens seem at first view sufiiciently distinct from H. septentrionalis. But I find no satisfactory character 

 to distinguish them ; and Coulter's No. 860 is intermediate. Perhaps it is also De Candolle's H. macroptera, 

 founded on one of Mojino and Sesse's drawings. The inflorescence inclines to be cymose and trichotomous. 

 The wings of the fruit are very broad and thin, nearly equal, often more or less confluent at the base, some- 

 times slightly so, as they appear to be in some fruits of the true H. septentrionalis, or even distinct. 



