124 



BOTANICAIi 



all these Pvrenean 



plants to the hotanist. Near Bagneres de 



ure rises the Pic de I'Hieris, a mountain 



forests, and celebrated for its botany ; which however, though 

 mountainous, is not alpine A few miles from Bagneres de Luchon 

 is the Val d'Esquierri, also famous for its botany. After passing 

 the little village of Oo, you ascend a shivery bank on the right, 

 the upper part of which is craggy and woody ; but the rocks are 

 not fom, and on horseback the ascent is rather a nervous affair. 

 Above this you enter a grassy valley with a rich variety of plants, 

 rather however subalpine than alpine ; but the slopes which bound 

 it on ea<jh side ascend to patches of snow. I met two botanists 

 as I descended, who were prepared to pass a night on the moun- 

 tain — the only way of examining thoroughly its productions. The 

 Port de Venasque is also visited from Bagneres de Luchon ; but I 

 apprehend the best station for examining this neighbourhood 



told, a vexy 



Spanish town of Venasqi 



Maladetta 



immediately 



We returned by Cette and Aries, taking advantage of the rail- 

 way from Toulouse. At both these places there is a good warm- 

 country botany, and of a very different character in each place ; 

 Cette presenting limestone rock and the sands of the sea-shore, 

 while about Aries all is gravel. The uncultivated lands about 

 Nismes will also gratify the botanist with several interesting 

 plants delighting in a limestone soil ; and various points above Aries 

 and about Orange, and some other places among the gravelly hills 

 which there boxmd the immediate valley of the Bhone, will afford 

 him abundant opportunity of examining the productions of that 

 soil. The railroads now make all these places easily accessible. 



If any botanist should be disposed to follow me in a visit to the 

 N. of Spain, the foregoing observations may perhaps help him to 

 direct his steps. The Pyrenees are so well explored, that there is 

 no hope of making new discoveries among them, unless indeed they 

 be founded on those nice and almost intangible distinctions which 

 seem now to be in favour with many of the Prench botanists. With 



range 



along the north coast of Spain, the case is far different. Their pro- 

 ductions are comparatively little known ; and though neither so 

 high nor so abrupt as that part of the chain which separates France 

 from Spain, yet, as in the Asturias the mountains rise to the 



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