Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 53.djvu/794

770 The native pine is a stately tree with wide-spreading circular crown. Its nearest relatives are Mexican and East Indian species. It still covers large tracts of land, and one may ride for hours over the needle-covered ground where hardly any undergrowth breaks the pleasant monotony of the uniform, soft brown. The Canary tamarisk grows in clumps in the drier barrancos, and is also found in the groves of wild olives, Lentiscus, and Bosea which still exist as remnants of the woods which once covered the hills around Tafira. The wiry stems of a twining asclepiadaceous plant (Periploca) wind around these low trees, sometimes making impassable thickets. There are fine forests in Los Telos and near Firgas in Canary, and still more beautiful and much larger ones in the vicinity of Laguna, Teneriffe. Du Mont d'Urville says of one of these (Agua Garcia) that it recalls perfectly the forests of the isles of the Pacific Ocean and of New Guinea. One may ride all day through the half twilight of the dense woods. There are four native species of laurel, belonging to three genera, which here attain superb size; two species of tree heath, two of holly, a beautiful Prunus, and an arbutus tree whose bright orange fruits resemble miniature oranges. The forest flora has a dense undergrowth of native viburnum, shrubby species of the mint, and umbellifer families. There are brooks and beautiful waterfalls, and on the banks of these ferns grow to a height of from four to seven feet. Around the bushes and trees twine the European ivy, and the curious Canarina, a large-flowered member of the morning-glory family, and Danaë, a plant of the smilax tribe, whose flowers spring from the margins of broad-leaflike stem expansions. One of the loveliest of the forest flowers is a large, pale-violet geranium with anemone-like leaves. But mere enumeration can give no idea of the beauties of these wonderful woodlands. Where there have been forest fires or clearings, a host of weeds spring up which, Berthelot says, gain predominance over one another in a certain definite succession, leading gradually to the reformation of forest.

Some of the most curious plants of the island flora have a limited distribution. The crater of Badhama in Canary has one or two species unknown elsewhere. Near the great rock of "Saucillo," a pillar of stone, near the center of the same island, one or two unique species have been found. The great crater of Palma, one of the largest and most perfect in the world, is the cradle and only home of others. Above all, the grand old "Peak" and its circle of surrounding mountains, the Cañadas, have proved most prolific in peculiar forms. More thorough exploration may perhaps extend some of these limited areas, but probably will not contradict the extreme isolation of many species. The careful study of the