526 BOTANICAL INFORMATION. 
refuse canes after they have gone through the mill, and are 
generally sufficient fuel, so that everything is made available. 
Tuesday, 11th. "The morning being fine and pleasant, we 
started early for Qua Hill, the left boundary of the valley, 
sloping gradually to the sea. Phaseolus lathyroides and 
several species of Sida were common along the margins of 
the cane-fields. Above the cultivated district a partially 
cleared wood commences, where among rocks, Hamelia patens, 
an elegant shrub was flowering profusely, laden with orange 
flowers and purple berries. I gathered specimens and seeds 
of it, also of a pretty half trailing shrub, which I took for a 
species of Knoxia. The scattered woods here are composed 
of Mahogany, two sorts of Ficus, some kinds of Piper and 
Andiara inermis. The seeds of a species of Ficus being 
deposited by birds, vegetate in the branches of the immense 
Cotton-trees, and soon sending down roots to the ground, the 
parasite ultimately envelopes their gigantic stems and com- 
pletely destroys them. The appearance of this phenomenon 
is highly peculiar, for the large areoles between the folds 
of the roots of the Ficus, show that all within is emptiness; 
so that one of these immense trees forms a shell over the 
now decayed trunk of the once noble Cotton-tree (Bombaz 
Ceiba) and receives the familiar appellation in Jamaica of 
“The Creole in the embrace of the Scotchman.” I also 
obtained specimens and seeds of two showy kinds of Psycho- 
tria. Broughtonia sanguinea abounds in this district, and I 
gathered several large tufts of it. I also observed Trades- 
eantia discolor on rocks ; and only two species of Adiantum, 
the climate being too hot and dry for the growth of Ferns. — 
When we had climbed the hill about 300 feet above the 
sea, the whole vale of Plantain Garden River lay stretched 
beneath us; the rich cane fields, with the buildings of the 
different estates and accompanying Negro Village, almost 
hidden in groves of Cabbage-Palms and Cocoa-nut trees, 
affording scenery, more varied and lovely than I had ever 
before seen. The promontory on each side of the vale, and 
stretching further into the sea than the vale, forms Holland 
