my knowledge of the flora of the country is still very frag- 

 mental. On December 20, 1909, I left my home in San Diego, 

 California, for Mexico City, hoping to spend some six months 

 in continuing my special studies of the Cactaceae, and a few 

 other families of distinctively ornamental plants. I did not 

 return until December 10, 1910, after nearly a year of con- 

 tinuous field work. 



For over a month my investigations were confined to the 

 musea and libraries of Mexico City, with very satisfactory 

 results. I first visited Jalapa, in the state of Vera Cruz — a 

 region where many botanists have collected in the past, 

 credited with a greater variety of plants than any other 

 portion of the world, but still ready to yield many new botan- 

 ical treasures. My stay was at a most unfavorable season, 

 and short, and at its termination I went to Vera Cruz — 

 where many flowers were just coming into bloom. 



I established my headquarters at Vera Cruz for three 

 months, making excursions from thence along the Vera Cruz 

 al Isthmo railway to Cordoba, and south to its junction with 

 the Tehuantepec National Ry., at Santa Lucretia. Though 

 the oldest and most important seaport of the republic, the 

 environs of Vera Cruz yielded one new shrub, much to my 

 surprise, as a result of very desultary collecting. Much 

 time was spent in this period near Sanborn, a few miles north 

 of Santa Lucretia, near the boundary line between the states 

 of Vera Cruz and Oaxaca. 



I then removed to the quaint Indian city of Tehuantepec, 

 traversing the entire line of the Tehuantepec National Ry., 

 from Coatzacoalcos (Puerto Mexico) to Salina Cruz. One 

 trip from the latter port was made by steamer to Puerto 

 Angel, Oaxaca, but the season was so little advanced that I 

 found very few flowers. 



The Isthmus of Tehuantepec, comprised in the states of 

 Vera Cruz and Oaxaca, thus occupied my attention until 

 the last of July, when I returned to Mexico City, at a time 

 when the whole table lands of Mexico were a mass of bloom. 

 Compelled to remain in Mexico City for a time, I started to 

 explore the wonderful valley of Mexico — a region that re- 

 calls a host of eminent names of the past, and only lately so 

 well covered by the labors of Cyrus G. Pringle — yet, in his 

 footsteps I gleaned a few species that apparently had hither- 

 to escaped attention. 



Ajusco, and the region beyond to fair Cuernavaca, with 

 one day at the Rio Balsas, in the state of Guerrero, proved 

 far too rich for harvesting in a single season — the pleasure 

 of seeing a multitude of beautiful flowers hitherto unknown 

 to me being marred by the physical impossibility of grasping 



