440 BOTANICAL INFORMATION . 



crown of glossy, slightly cleft leaves at the top of a bare, 

 woody stalk, 4 or 5 feet high, and at the very extremity, a 

 spike of orange or rusty-coloured flowers. Linum Narbonense, 

 Adenocarpus Telonensis, Genista triacanthos, and Teucrium 

 fruticans, were also common, together with a pretty and new 

 Scorzonera with linear leaves. A stream that hurried down 

 from a gorge in the mountain, traversed this spot, and a few 

 cottages, built in the valley near it, sheltered with trees and 

 commanding fine glimpses of the sea, appeared as so many 

 abodes of peace and felicity. 



The vegetation of the Sierra Bermeja is very different from 

 that of ^the other mountain chains in the country, its pecu- 

 liarities being due, partly to the woods which clothe it, ana 

 partly to the nature of its rocks, consisting of a kind of sand- 

 stone and not of chrystalized limestone. As it is the nearest 

 to Africa, so it seems to resemble the secondary ranges of the 

 Atlas mountains. I saw the lovely Stcshelina Boetica begin- 

 ning to expand its delicate pink flowers, Genista hirsutaiorva\a% 

 thick and roundish bushes, and Lithospermum prostratum, 

 which indeed is common in all the mountainous parts oi 

 Spain, and was here decked with corollas, white, red, or pur- 

 ple, according to the date of their expansion. My guide tol 

 me many wonderful tales of the virtues of this last plant' 

 which the country people call yerba de las siete Sangrias, be- 

 cause its administration is considered of equal virtue with 

 severe blood-lettings. Pinus pinaster, which grew very stunte 

 at the foot of the mountain, attained at this elevation the 

 stature of a tree, 30 or 40 feet high, the trunk bare of branches 

 below, and the leaves very long, and stiff, and sharp, with the 

 scales of its cones much warted. At a height of 2,000 f ee 

 we halted near a burning spring, charmed with the shade 

 which the traveller so rarely sees on the mountains of the 

 Peninsula, and enjoying the murmur of the stream and of t ne 

 wind amid the leaves. Anagallis tenella, Scirpus tugrW^' 

 and S. acicularis, were growing in the water, and splendi 

 bushes of Erica ramulosa and Dorycnium hirsutuffl a 

 around. 



