17 



two small rain clouds in the sky, yet the wind was blowing a 



moderate gale. 



From the very water's edge the ground was covered with 

 myriads of beautiful flowers — patches of pink-tipped sea-thrift, 

 fragrant drooping lilies, yellow violets and Calceolarias, white 

 Cerastiimi, daisy-like composites, and clumps of a prickly-leaved 

 plant not yet in bloom. The sea-thrift, Armeria vulgaris^ I at 

 first mistook for a composite. It has a globular head of *' ever- 

 lasting" flowers, bearing a general resemblance to Gna/>hdlium, 

 supported on a slender stem which rises from a mass of linear 

 grass-like leaves. It belongs to the Plumbaginaceae, the family 

 including the Statice of our sea-shore. The lily-like plant proved 

 to be an ally of Sisyrhijichitim. It was Syviphyostemon narcis- 

 soides : its flowers, like those of a day-lily in shape, drooped in 

 a graceful umbel ; some of them were pure white, while others 

 w^ere delicately penciled with purple. The Calceolaria {C.nand) 

 is a fragile little plant, bearing a comparatively large flower, 

 somewhat like a Cypripediinn^ on a short herbaceous stem which 

 rises from a rosette of radical ovate leaves. The lower edge of 

 the opening in its yellow corolla is bordered by a white waxy 

 lip, and the inner surface is speckled with brown. The Ceras- 

 tiuift proved to be the common C. arvense ; the daisy-like com- 

 posite was probably a dwarf Erigeron ; and the prickly-leaved 

 plant is, I think, Homoianthus echiniilatus, a species which Pro- 

 fessor Cunningham collected on the opposite Fuegian shore. I 

 collected also a yellow Senecio, very much Hke 5. Chilensis; 

 and close to the shore grew a plant not yet in bloom, with large 

 leaves covered with white wool, which I think is a second species 

 of the same genus {S. candicans), 



A little further inland I found a yellow^ Geum {G. Magellan- 

 iciun), a vetchling {Lathynis Magellanicus), Valeriana carnosa, 

 a small crucifer {Draba /), Phacelia circinata, a Hydrophylla- 

 ceous plant also occurring in North America, and Acc^na adscend- 

 ens, a species widely distributed in antarctic regions. 



Climbing in a barberry bush, I found a Galium^ and at its 

 base the common Shepherds-purse, the w^idely-spread Anemone 

 decapetala, L. {A. Caroliniana, Walt.), and a delicate Oxalis (0, 

 enneaphylla) with rose-tinted corolla, closed when I found it, like 



