OX THE COAST FLORA OF JAPTGL4, S. TTALY. 523 



The Coast Flora of Japvg'ia, S. Italy. 

 By Henry GroVes, F.L.S. 



[Read 2nd April, 1885.] 



One of the least-visited parts of Southern Italy is that corner 

 now known as the Province of Lecce, formerly as the Terra 

 d' Otranto, and anciently as Japygia. My observations in this 

 paper will be confined to the coast-line of the district situate 

 between Otranto and Taranto, extending sometimes to a few 

 miles inland. Its area presents a great variety of soil and level, 

 which renders it especially interesting to the botanical explorer, 

 who now has to wade through extensive marshes, now through 

 deep sands, or stand enchanted on some noble headland, which, 

 like the Capo di Leuca, must have caught the eye of many a 

 Greek emigrant bound for the Magna Grrecia, that promised 

 land towards the setting-sun — that sun which in these regions 

 sets so frequently with a weird mysterious light which cannot 

 fail to fill the mind with awe and speculation, and compel one to 

 feel but a pygmy pilgrim halting on the threshold of the great 

 unknown ! 



Glancing at the map of Italy, we find that, after the basin 

 of the Po, the Terra d' Otranto contains the greatest extent 

 of territory void of mountains in the whole peninsula. Although 

 its surface is frequently undulating, the swelling ground never 

 acquires sufficient height to exercise a marked influence on the 

 temperature of the plains, which are unvisited by the cool breezes 

 of mountainous countries. For this reason the plains partake of 

 the climate of the opposite coasts, where the immediate presence 

 of high mountains shelters the shores at their feet, the cold blasts 

 from their summits passing harmlessly seaward. We thus find 

 that the coast-lines on either side of the straits are under 

 somewhat similar climatic conditions, although from opposite 

 causes, one being from the absence of mountains, and the other 

 from their immediate presence. Moreover, both are subjected 

 to the same powerful sun in summer and to about the same rain- 

 fall in winter. 



When we reflect on the great commerce in grain and other 

 produce which must have flowed from the Mother Greece to 

 her Italian colonies, whose shores are washed by the same seas, 

 and on the annual migration of birds, which is so fruitful a 



I.TNN. JOURN. — BOTANV, VOL. XXT. 2 «i 



