On our way homeward we notice a bulb, or rather its leaves, in many places. The leaves are bluish, flat, two-ranked and the bulb large, nearly as large as the bulb of an Amaryllis. In summer, after a good shower of rain, it sends up in a few days a spike with a single flower 2 inches in diameter, white, tipped on the outside with purple. It is Cooperia Drummondi. A near relative, Cooperia pedunculata, dries up in May, and flowers in August or September, after the fall rain has set in. At the same time with the foregoing, we find in sandy Post oak soil around Austin, a pretty little bulb in flower, Habranthus Andersonii. It is bright yellow inside; outside striped with purplish brown. These three bulbs are classified as Amaryllidaceae. On the side of low somewhat rocky elevations, grows a Liliaceous bulb from 1 1/2 to 2 feet high, with a spike of lilac-colored flowers in March; leaves long and on the ground. Nearly in the same places, but more at the foot of the hill, where there is an accumulation of fine light soil, the flowers of Androstephium violaceum, another little bulb, appear early in March, with red, white and blue colors.

Sisyrinchium minor is a little perennial, herbaceous plant, much like robust grass in appearance, and with a panicle of blue flowers in March or April.

Near springs in wet ground, or along streams of water, grow two species of Hibiscus - H. moscheu-tos and H. militaris - about 5 feet high, with large white flowers and purple centre. In rocky places can be found Gilia rigidula, a very low-growing, half shrubby plant with bright blue flowers early in summer. Below Austin, in sandy soil grows the beautiful Asclepia tuberosa, with its large heads of orange-colored flowers. Still farther down, some 10 or 15 miles, we meet with Pentste-mon Murrayanum; while all along the Colorado river, Phlox Drummondii is found in somewhat sandy soil.

And now I propose to take the reader of this magazine 200 miles away to the confines of Texas, and to the canons of the upper Nueces river, stopping on our way in two or three places. First we make a halt at New Braunfels on the Guadalupe river. Here the Comal river rises, and after a course of a few miles, mingles its waters with those of the Guadalupe, below the town of New Braunfels. The water of the Comal is very warm, of an even temperature winter and summer, being all from springs at the foot of the mountains. Wherever the water is not too deep, or a foothold offered, Caladium esculentum has established itself, giving to the landscape a charm peculiarly its own. But the plant is not indigenous there, for the writer of this very well remembers when he first came to New Braunfels, in the summer of 1854, that there was not a single plant to be found in the river at that time. It was introduced there about 1860. A few miles above New Braunfels on the Guadalupe river, in somewhat rocky soil, grows a peculiar plant, which, as far as I know, is in Texas found nowhere else. The plant in question is a shrub belonging to the order Ona-graceae. The name given to me by a gentleman in New Braunfels is Fendleria rupicola.

It is of upright growth, branches long and thin, about 5 feet high, evergreen, leaves like myrtle leaves, and to make the resemblance to a myrtle more striking, has flowers like the myrtle, but larger. It flowers in March, before or with the new growth. The flowers are tipped on the outside with purple, and resemble in other respects the flowers of the Oenothera in having claws to the petals. It transplants easily, and is worth a place in every garden where it will thrive.

But we will resume our journey and stop at San Antonio, where we find in the vicinity, the beautiful Agave maculosa. This plant has a thick root like a turnip. The root leaves are spotted with brown, and in the heat of summer coil up somewhat, giving them the appearance of a bunch of snakes. It flowers during summer or autumn, when it sends up a stem 4 feet high, beset with flowers of the size and shape of single tuberoses. They are greenish when they open, and bright pink at their best, turning to a dull purple when they fade, with the fragrance of a tuberose.

But we go on travelling towards the west, where the old wagon road from San Antonio to El Paso crosses the dry bed of the Rio Frio. Basaltic rocks have been lifted up; in and between these rocks we find growing an elegant shrub about 9 feet high, with bright green leaves, and the entire summer covered with racemes of tubular orange scarlet flowers. It is Anisacanthus Wrightii; order Acanthaceae. We pass on through the little town of Uvalde; here we leave the El Paso road and strike for the mountains. Our destination is the East Canon of the Nueces We have not travelled far, we come to an elevated ridge; there the mountains rise in the distance, two of them tower up at the very entrance of the canon like sentinels. We travel up a few miles and finally stop where a tremendous chalk bluff (so the people call it, though I believe the rocks are not composed of true chalk but hard limestone), lifts up its head close to the banks of the river. Our whole surroundings are now very different from those in central Texas. Grass is very often wanting in many places of the valley of the canon. Its place is occupied by cactus, several species of thorny shrubs, belonging mostly to the mimosa tribe. Yucca aloifolia in every direction.

A large Bromelia forming huge tufts of long serrate leaves is very conspicuous. If there were not some groves of pecan trees and a few hackberries and elms with some other trees with larger leaves, the contrast with central Texas would be still more striking. Wending our way towards one of the mountains, we pass through the dry bed of a creek. A small close growing shrub with scented leaves and spikes of purple flowers arrests our attention; it is Salvia Greggii one of the most abundant bloomers I know. If we chance to be here in March we find a nearly prostrate or at least a low, round and bushy perennial plant, with large umbels of long tubular sweet-scented flowers of a creamy white color, tinged on the outside with purple. Seeing the plant at another season of the year, nobody would expect that this insignificant looking plant would produce such beautiful flowers.