536 BOTANICAL INFORMATION. 



is at about the same distance as Cauterets, but less elevated. 

 My souvenirs of Luz are not of the most agreeable kind, 

 partly because they are always connected with the dirt and 

 dust (to say nothing of the fleas) of Madame Cuzaux's hotel, 

 though scarcely any guide-book fails to vaunt its excellence ; 

 and partly because I gathered fewer mosses there than in any 

 other part of the Pyrenees. Indeed, the whole of the district, 

 including the environs of Luz, Bareges, and Gavarnie, is 

 almost destitute of mosses, which is easily explained by there 

 being no forests. It produces, however, some excellent 

 flowering-plants and lichens. 



I wasted a whole day in searching the schistose rocks on 

 the mountain called " la Butte St. Justin/' to the left of the 

 road leading to Bareges, where M. Desmoulins had discovered 

 a new lichen, described by Dr. Montagne in the ** Annales 

 des Sciences Naturelles," under the name of Endocarpon 

 Moulinsii. I gathered the curious Endocarpon saxorum, but 

 of E. Moulinsii, so easily distinguished by its being the only 

 species of the genus which has the thallus pubescent beneath, 

 I saw not a trace ; yet I was afterwards so fortunate as to 

 find it on some rocks of similar character, at the base o 

 the Chateau of Luz, where it grew accompanied by Parmelia 

 fulgem. 



On the 13th of August we set out on an excursion to Ga- 

 varnie, intending to pass the night at the village, and on the 

 following day to explore the Col and Vallee d'Estaube'. 

 spent some time among the rocks called Chaos, between 

 Gedre and Gavarnie, where I gathered some Cryptogamia, 

 amongst which Andrecea rupestris and Parmelia chlorophana 

 (Squamaria electrina, DC), are worthy of mention; • 

 former on account of the very great rarity of the genus An- 

 drecea in the Pyrenees. I know of nothing in the climate < 

 the physical character of the Pyrenees which will attor 

 reason for this curious fact : the almost total absence o 

 allied genus Sphagnum is accounted for by the want o 

 bogs, of which I have seen but two in the ^" reneeS, The 

 neither covered more than two or three acres of ground. 



