134 BOTANICAL INFORMATION. 



to prefer the rocky crevices and fissures, climbing like the 

 Vitis, on anything that is nearest ; the herbaceous shoots die 

 down every winter, whether by the influence of the frost or 

 other reasons ; but the woody part remains alive. 



{To be continued.) 



Notes on the Botany of the Pyrenees, in a Letter addressed 

 to the Editor, by Richard Spruce, Esq. 



Bagneres de Bigorre, Hautes Pyrenees, 

 Jan. 3, 1846. 

 My dear Sir, 

 I have been for some months wishing to write to you, but 

 my botanical occupations have been so constant and so all- 

 engrossing, as to leave me no leisure for preparing letters. 

 Besides, I have said to myself, " why write, when I have not 

 time to relate the tenth part of my adventures, and above all, 

 when I cannot speak with decision respecting the one-hall 

 of my collection ?" Now, however, that I am surrounded by 

 ice and snows, and days suitable for herborization occur few 

 and far between, I have time to reflect on past events, and 

 to study and arrange my immense results. 



So very discouraging were the accounts I received previous to 

 leaving England, respecting the Cryptogamia of the Pyrenees, 

 that I came out with the determination not to be disappointed 

 if I did not discover a single new species. A French writer goes 

 so far as to assert, « La famille des Mousses n'existe pas dans 

 les Pyrenees f and a learned compatriot, well known as a 

 Bryologist, and who has himself herborized on these moun- 

 tains, said to me, " There are no Mosses worth gathering m 

 the Pyrenees." The enthusiastic Ramond, who investigated 

 with much perseverance the Botany and Geology of the Pyr e ~ 

 nees, in enumerating the plants which he found on the summit 

 of the Pic du Midi (of which he made no fewer than thirty- 

 five ascents !), observes, respecting the last three of the 



