half the forms that my eye feasted upon from the windows 

 of the railway train. 



The same tantalizing experience awaited me in my travels 

 by rail in other directions from Mexico City. A day at 

 Teziutlan, a beautiful, quiet Indian town, yielded over thirty 

 varieties of ferns. Pachuca — of mining fame — gave me a 

 glimpse of the flora of another state — Hidalgo. Around the 

 orange groves of the Rio Verde, in the state of San Luis 

 Potosi, was found a rich field apparently untouched. Jour- 

 neys eastward to Tampico, of oil fame, and westward to 

 lovely Guadalajara, enabled me to glimpse other thousands 

 of species that I could not harvest — though with less regret, 

 knowing that my friend, Mr. Pringle, in his labors covering 

 twenty-seven years of time, had made the most of these known 

 to the botanical world. 



The approach to the city of Colima, and to the port of 

 Manzanillo, was far more satisfactory, except that the time 

 available was too short to do this extremely rich and nearly 

 virgen field full justice, still I left with presses full to over- 

 flowing. 



I returned to the United States on nearly the last passen- 

 ger train that was destined to run under the the administra- 

 tion of Porfirio Diaz, from Mexico City to El Paso, hoping 

 to return to the fascinating field after a month's vacation. 

 But two years were to elapse instead, not until December, 

 1912, did I again enter the republic, and then through Piedra 

 Negras instead of Juarez. 



Resuming my work in Mexico City, under the short and 

 unfortunate regime of Francisco I. Madero, I planned to 

 cover as much of the still little-known flora of the west coast 

 of Mexico as I could accomplish. But again fate willed other- 

 wise, and the early part of the season was spent collecting 

 north of the Rio Grande, in Texas. 



In July, 1913, another attempt was made to enter the field, 

 leaving San Diego, California, by steamer, for Manzanillo, 

 and thence by train to Mexico City. Finding it still im- 

 practical to prosecute the field work undertaken I again re- 

 turned home in September, 1913, with comparatively small 

 additional collections. 



A partial list of species, nearly complete as far as they 

 have yet been determined by Dr. Jesse Moore Greenman, ap- 

 pears in the third volume of American Plants (the Euphor- 

 biaceae, determined by Dr. Charles F. Millspaugh, appears 

 in the same list). The lichens, determined by Dr. H. E. 

 Hasse; fungi by Dr. Murrill; grasses by Dr. A. S. Hitch- 

 cock; and ferns, by William R. Maxon, appear in the same 

 work, but probably more than one thousand species yet await 



