PARRY AND SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA BOTANY. 

 By S. B. Parish. 

 Dr. Charles Christopher Parry's connection with Southern 

 (California botany began in 1849, when he became botanist on 

 the Mexican Boundary Survey. Coming west by Panama, he 

 he joined Emory's party in July of that year at San Diego. 

 Here he remained until the eleventh of September, when he 

 accompanied a party to the mouth of the Gila River, which was 

 not reached before December 10th, and then, with greater rapid- 

 ity, returned to San Diego. The season of the year at which this 

 journey was made was not favorable to desert botanizing, and 

 even the weeks which preceeded it could have afforded no great 

 opportunities of securing many of the plants at San Diego, where 

 Nuttall had spent, in the spring of 1836, twenty /our days of 

 diligent and productive herbarizing. Parry's collections of this 

 year were probably not large, but whatever they may have been, 

 they were lost in transit east, probably in a disastrous fire at 

 Panama. 



In view of recent developments at Imperial and other parts 

 of the Colorado Desert, Dr. Parry's impression of its agricultural 

 possibilities is not without interest. "As far as all agricultural 

 purposes are concerned," his report reads, "this is truly a desert. 

 The borders of New River, being subject to frequent if not regular 

 overflow, would seem to present some opportunities for the limi- 

 ted cultivation of maize, beans, pumpkins and melons, such as is 

 practiced by the Indians on the Colorado. Still we must admit 

 that any system of cultivation must be very precarious in a lo- 

 cation where its success depends upon such variable causes. 

 The higher adjoining lands being without the reaV.i of these 

 influences, are, from their extreme aridity, and the light porous 

 nature of the soil, quite unfit for any cultivation." 



In the ensuing spring, 1850, Dr. Parry collected about San 

 Diego, and along the western end of the boundary line. His 

 collections of Cactaceae were very valuable, including the types 

 of Cereus Emoryi, near the terminal monument; C. Engelmanni, 

 Echinocactus cylindraceus and Opuntia Parryi at San Felipe; 

 O. prolifera and O. serpentina at San Diego; and O. ramosissima 

 and Mamillaria ietrancistra at indefinite points on the desert. 

 In the same spring he collected on the San Diego plain Ophio 



