198 BOTANICAL INFORMATION. 
The researches of Mr. Bentham and Dr. Arnott, among the 
accomplished botanists of our own country, have demonstrated 
the Phanerogamic riches of the Pyrénées, and even since the 
visit of these gentlemen several interesting novelties have 
been detected, especially in the western mountains. There 
remain, however, some extensive and promising districts, 
especially on the Spanish side of the chain, about which little 
is known, and therefore many discoveries doubtless still re- 
main to be made. But it is in Cryptogamia that the richest 
harvest, or at least that productive of the most novelty, may 
be expected; for certainly no competent Cryptogamist has 
ever yet devoted sufficient time and attention to the search 
of these obscure tribes. Lichens are known to be numerous 
and beautiful in the Pyrénées, and some rare and interesting 
Mosses have been detected. The whole of the specimens 
collected by Mr. Spruce will be preserved in the best possible 
manner; the flowering-plants will be dried entire, whenever 
practicable, and the Mosses, &c., with their fructification as 
perfect as it is possible to procure them. He proposes to 
devote a period of not less than six months to the task, com- 
mencing with the month of April, and he trusts to have the 
phænogamic portion of his collection ready for sale in London 
by the end of autumn, and perhaps the first Century of Pyre- 
næan Mosses will appear at the same time, but he does not 
expect the whole of the Cryptogamia will be in a fit state for 
publication before the spring of 1846. We may add that Mr. 
Spruce intends to collect in the departments of the Basses 
Pyrénées and the Hautes Pyrénées, and as much on the Spa- 
nish side as the state of affairs in that country will admit. 
The Pyrenean collection being concluded, this Botanist 
contemplates devoting the ensuing winter and the summer of 
1846 to the exploration of the South of Spain, and especially 
the Sierra Nevada. Under favourable circumstances, his 
collections in this, the richest and least known country 
in Europe, cannot fail to be of unusual interest. Until 
the recent researches of Boissier, Andalusia was nearly a 
* terra incognita." That eminent botanist has done little more 
