108 DISTRIBUTION OF PLANTS. 



mate too arid for a forest-region : yet the country could not be regarded 

 as altogether unwooded ; the foliage on trees and shrubs, even in deep 

 ravines, was devoid of luxuriant freshness ; but nowhere below the 

 middle region of the Andes, were there any signs of extreme aridity. 



Environs of Valparaiso. Even from our anchorage, the promi- 

 nence in the landscape of Tropical genera was very striking. A 

 columnnY Cej-eus m the distance, here and there projecting upright; 

 and Bwrnelias, all decumbent in conspicuous patches on the ground, 

 some of them fifty feet in diameter from a single central root. On 

 reaching a ravine back of the city, stocks of a palm, Cocos GhUemis, 

 came into view. Other Tropical forms soon made their appearance ; 

 as, a scarlet-flowered Loranthus, parasitic and conspicuous on bushes; 

 Chusquea quila, a kind of dwarf bamboo ; Tachellia cavenia, belong- 

 ing to the Mimoseas; a Chrysophyllum-like Lucama ; a Cesimm ; a 

 Boerliaavia ; and several Myriactce. The presence of some of these 

 Tropical forms seemed traceable to the vegetative process being never 

 interrupted by a winter of cold : yet after excluding those above- 

 named, the vegetable growth presented as little of the Tropical aspect 

 as at the same distance from the Equator in any other part of the 

 glol^e. 



In ascending the ridges of the mountain-slope back of Valparaiso, 

 these were found to be sterile, with a considerable proportion of the 

 soil bare ; yet supporting large, isolated, clustered shrubs, four to nine 

 feet high, growing wide apart, and very uniformly many-stemmed : 

 as, Spliacele Lindleiji ; Lobelia ])oly pi lylla, with its long scarlet flowers; 

 Boldoa fra grans ; Gardoquia G'dUesii ; Calceolaria irdegrifolia ; three 

 or four species of Bnccharis ; the Colliquaja, persistently rendered 

 scarlet by a parasitic Loranthus ; the strange, aphyllous, green-spined 

 Collefia; and in tangled masses, agreeing in outline with the clustered 

 shrubs, the long herbaceous twining stems of Polygonum f Helxine J 

 tamnifolima. Here and there, as already intimated, a stock of the 

 upright columnar Cereus rose six to twenty feet high ; or in other 

 instances, the tall flower-stem of a Bromelia. 



The intervals between the clustered shrubs, sometimes many acres 

 in extent, were occupied by a thinly-scattered growth of very humble 

 plants: as dried-up grasses; two Dicliondras ; Paronychia'? raniosis- 

 sima; Margyrocarpus setosus ; several Ap)lop)ap2n and Giiaplialiums, and 

 other depressed Compositce ; and especially, a nearly stemless blue- 

 flowered Ruellia, singularly corresponding to our Northern upland 



