NOTES ON THE BOTANY OF JAMAICA. 277 
standing alone or in small groups, the Broad-leaf (Terminalia), the 
Cotton-tree (Hriodendron), Sandbox (Hura), Cedar (Cedrela), and tufts 
of Bamboo, abundance of water, herds of fine cattle and horses 
everywhere, and as varied and beautiful a park-like scenery altogether 
as there can be in the world. It is in this part, at a village called 
Moneague, about 1,500 feet above the sea, that I have been residing 
the last five months. 
During December, January, and half of February, the rain was a great 
impediment to botanical pursuits. The heavy autumnal rains were 
over; but from sunrise, when it usually began to drizzle, there were 
seldom two hours together without a shower, till about four P. M., when 
the sky usually cleared up, and was followed by a brilliant starlight night. 
Since the middle of February there has been scarcely any rain at all. 
This, I understand, is the usual climate of the district, at these seasons. 
It is now beginning to rain again. 
The conformation of this part of Jamaica is very singular. It is 
described in a memoir by Sir Henry De la Béche, in the Geological 
Fransaetions. The whole surface of the country consists of a honey- 
comb limestone, full of depressions, called **sink-holes," into which 
the water drains, to burst out in large streams about Ocho Rios, 
St. Ann's Bay, and other places along the north coast. There are no 
continuous valleys sweeping into larger ones, and leading off to the 
sea, but all broken up into irregular risings and cavities. On the 
Mount Diablo range, and upon most of the isolated hills, there is still 
much of the primeval forest left. The cleared ground is, I may say, ` 
entirely pasture, for sugar culture in this part is abandoned, except 
the few canes that the negroes grow in their gardens. The grass 
most cultivated is the far-famed Guinea-grass, Panicum jumentorum. 
The older pastures, that have been left to a state of nature, consist 
chiefly of Pimento-grass and several Paspa/a, and, as compared with — 
European and North American meadows, are almost entirely free from - 
other herbage. 
'The trees are all, or nearly all, deciduous. Hitherto, the warmer the 
climate the more evergreens I have found. In Europe, as we travel 
southward, they increase more and more. At the Cape of Good Hope 
I think the native trees were all evergreen. In Jamaica, although they 
all cast their leaves, there is no one season at which the forests are 
bare, nor has even the species a fixed time. Nay, Dr. Gilbert Macnab 
