Dec., 1901.] 
Notes of Travel in Porto Rico. 
l6 S 
filled up during a period when the sea was slightly higher than 
at present, whence it has receded and left the island of to-day. 
They are covered with a characteristic jungle, rising conspicu- 
ously out of which is the “Llume” palm ( Aeria attenuata ) whose 
graceful stem, only about half a foot thick at the base, attains a 
height of a hundred feet, tapering till it is only three or four 
inches thick at the top. It is nearly white and at a distance 
entirely invisable, so that the crown of leaves looks as though it 
were floating around in the air above the surrounding vegetation. 
Further inland the limestone hills give way to others of red 
clay. The clay, like the limestone, is very deeply eroded. In 
most places it is so continually washed down that the sides of the 
hills stand always at the critical angle and are ready to slide from 
under the feet of the explorer. Indeed it would be impossible to 
climb them were it not for the numerous bushes everywhere 
standing ready to lay hold on. Here abound ferns, Melasto- 
maceae and other plants of humid regions. Tree ferns are very 
common ; the largest belong to one species of Cyathia. Its 
beauty is simply beyond description. Imagine, you who have 
never seen it, a trunk thirty feet tall surmounted by a crown of a 
dozen or fifteen great leaves made up of a score or two pinnae of 
the size and grace of ordinary ferns and you have the compon- 
ents — not the ensemble — of the tree fern. 
This red clay region is the land of coffee. Everywhere the 
novice thinks the hillside covered with jungle, which turns out 
to be only poorly kept coffee plantations. The coffee region is 
coextensive with the range of several plants. Two or three 
species of the pepper family, with large peltate or round leaves, 
are found only here ; and with one or two exceptions the Melas- 
tomaceae occur only in this wet country. They are a very large 
group of plants common throughout the tropics, but represented 
in the northern states by the common Rhexia. Its members may 
be known anywhere by their three-nerved leaves, many of which 
are beautifully patterned and marked so that even among other 
tropical plants they are conspicuous for their beauty. 
When we cross the summit we come upon a different sort of 
vegetation ; cacti take the place of tree ferns, and instead of wet 
jungles we have dry scrub brush full of spiny and thorny shrubs 
with almost every' sort of prickle one can think of. One who has 
never encountered them can scarcely appreciate the abundance 
and effectiveness of tropical thorns. These thickets of brush 
extend over most of the undisturbed portion of the south side. 
Everywhere through them there are scattered cacti of several 
sorts ; but near Guayanilla, a few miles west of Ponce, these 
become relatively much more numerous so as to form a veritable 
cactus desert. Only here is the largest form present. It is a 
large Opuntia with a bare stem and long arms radiating in one 
