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6 MB. BtTNBTJBT ON THE BOTANY OP MADEIBA. 



showing the dry withered remains of its long seed-vessels. The 

 most abundant maritime plant, however, here and on the sea-rocks 

 near Eunchal generally, is a fleshy-leaved Plantain, which appears 

 to be merely an excessively luxuriant variety of P. Coronopus. 



The culture of the vine hardly extends above 2000 feet. Beyond 

 this height there is still some cultivation, but it is in scattered 

 patches, no longer bo continuous and extensive as to exclude the 

 native vegetation. Tlie mountain sides are in part covered with 

 open woods of chestnut, nowhere so thick as to prevent herbage 

 from growing under them ; in parts there are large plantations of 

 Pinaster ; but on the whole the general appearance of the upper 

 region of the mountains, on the southern side of the island, is 

 rather bare, and strikingly so when compared with the northern 

 side. The above-mentioned Pinasters seem to have been mistaken 

 by Spix and Martins* for Finus Ganariensis, which I never saw 

 in Madeira. In the chestnut woods, and in the ravines of this 

 region of the mountains, one meets with some of the charac- 

 teristic plants of the island, such as Hypericum grand if olinm^ 

 Choisy {Androscemum W^ehhianum^ Webb and Berthelot), Cedro- 

 nella triphylla, Benth., Sihthorpia peregrina^ and Micromeria 

 varia ; this last, indeed, a common plant on rocks, even down to 

 the coast. The Sweet Violet (called Viola Maderensis, but which 1 

 do not see how to distinguish from V. odoratd) grows in profusion, 

 beginning at an elevation of aboitt 1000 feet above the sea. Vinca 

 major abounds licre and there, but not far from houses or gardens, 

 and probably naturalized. Of the AmaryJlis Belladonna, wliich is 

 said to be the most beautiful uniament of tlie cliestnut woods, I 

 saw only the leaves. There seems to be no doubt of its being the 

 same species that grows at the Cape ; its occurrence in two such 

 distant localities is puzzling to account for on any theory of 

 migration, unless we suppose it to liave been purposely intro- 

 duced ; for its large bulbs would with difficulty be conveyed to 

 great distances, either by any natural means of transport or by 

 the unconscious agency of man. On tlie other hand, if we resort 

 to the hypothesis of independent creations, it seems strange that 

 a local plant, very fastidious as to soil and situation, should be 

 common to the dry parched sands of the Cape Flats and tlie damp 

 cloudy mountains of Madeira. 



Of Ferns, the PolysticJium aculeatum (Aspidimn angiilare, Sm.) 

 and Lomaria Spicant {Blechnum horeale, Sm.) are very common, 

 in the chestnut woods ; Asj^lenitim aficeps, Lowe, AspL acuttmij 



* Travels in Brazil, vol. i. 



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