Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

The woody plants of Siguatepeque, Honduras

1930; Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University; Volume: 11; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.5962/bhl.part.2810

2474-3283

Paul Carpenter Standley,

Plant and soil sciences

ARBORETUM [vou. x1 and past swamps enveloped in fog, above which the Cohune and Royal Palms projected unsubstantially.Through more bananas we passed, then along the broad, sluggish, brown Ulua River, and finally, as day was breaking, reached the inland town of Progreso.Here our baggage was transferred to an automobile, and we rode with it to the banks of the Ulua.The stream we crossed on a flatbottomed ferry boat, propelled by ropes and current.On the other bank we took a train, operated by a different banana company, and rode through still more fields of bananas, past plantations of light green sugar cane, and across pasture land whose trees were cut long ago.The country on the west bank of the Ulua is much drier than the Tela region.There appear here such trees as the Guanacaste or Eartree (Enterolobium cyclocarpum), Castafio (Sterculia apetala), Cochlospermum vitifolium, with its brilliant flowers like yellow roses, and the Coyol Palm (Acrocomia mexicana).Soon after leaving the river we neared the high hills, which from here southward are clothed chiefly with Pines.It is probable that the Pines on the hills nearest the coast are Cuban Pine (Pinus caribaea), but those farther inland are mostly P. oocarpa.The distribution of Pines in Central America deserves further and careful study.The genus ranges southward into Nicaragua, but does not reach Costa Rica, although Pines often are planted about fincas in the mountains of the latter country.In some places along the Atlantic coast of Central America, as in British Honduras, and in Nicaragua, near Cape Gracias a Dios, Pine trees come to the edge of the sea, and rise high above the rocks which jut into the ocean.In other places, as here in Honduras, they do not approach within fifty miles of salt water.Probably the distribution is explainable by soil conditions, for manifestly Pines will not grow in swamp lands, such as those in which bananas thrive.As we went farther inland, toward the foothills, the evidently drier country recalled somewhat the plains along the Pacific coast in Guatemala and Salvador.At noon we reached the railroad terminal at Potrerillos, and after a brief lunch we were off again in a camién, a truck fitted out as a bus.I have seen many atrocious roads in Central America, and some of the same sort in the United States, but never have I seen one so bad as this over which it was considered possible to operate automobiles.For mules it was passable, but for motor cars it was a problem.The road was a long succession-about thirty miles-of rock ledges, mud holes of uncertain depth, and streams to be forded, all of which at first were entertaining because of their novelty and variety, but they were repeated so persistently that they soon became merely monotonous and exasperating.I am told that automobiles never fail to make the run from Potrerillos, but that sometimes it requires three days to cover the 1980]