BALSAM-BOG. 79 



Euyal Gardens, Kew, and in the most perfect state of preservation. At 

 tlic railway station this single box, with its solitary specimen (including 

 the soft packing materials, filamentous Lichens,) was found to weigh 

 547 lbs. Deducting the strong case, 234 lbs., and the soft packing, 

 10 lbs., we have 303 lbs. as the actual weight of the specimen. It 

 was an interesting occupation for stay-at-home travellers to witness 

 the opening of the case. The very packing-stuff had charms for the 

 Cryptogamic botanist, consisting, as just observed, of the filamentous 

 Lichens of the country ; they consisted of noble specimens of the 

 Usuea melaxantha, Ach. (figured in Hook. Bot. Misc. vol. i. p. 15, tab. 3, 

 under the name of Usnea sphacelatuy Br., a species both Arctic and Ant- 

 arctic, and inhabiting the higher mountains of the Andes even under 

 the Equator), several states of the ubiquitous Umea harhata and plicata^ 

 together with many remarkable varieties of Ramalhia scopulorum, seve- 

 rally in copious fructification ; and no better package could possibly 

 have been employed. They retained a certain degree of moisture, were 

 soft and elastic, not in the least disposed to heat or decay; all looked 

 as fresh and as bright-coloured as if they had been that day gathered 

 from their native rocks, — a lesson for those who have occasion to pack 

 many living plants for long voyages. 



On the removal of the Lichens i\t hummock of the Bolax glebaria 

 came fully into view, exactly corresponding with the general descrip- 

 tions extracted above from the writings of the Abbe Pernetty and Dr. 

 Hooker; its broad base rested firmly on the bottom of the box: it 

 required four men to remove it. Its shape is an irregular hemisphere, 

 2 feet high, 3^ feet broad in its greatest diameter; the circumference 

 at the base 10 feet; and it measured from side to side, carrying the 

 line over the summit, 6 feet 3 inches. Externally it forms a compact, 

 nearly even crust, consisting of the stellated or rosulated ultimate 

 shoots of the plant, so closely packed that not a pin^s breadth of 

 vacancy can be perceived between them. Beneath is a cavity, how 

 deep we know not, occupied by decayed vegetable matter, the detritus 

 of former years, root and stem and leaves, — a perfectly black soft 

 mould. This has not only afforded nutriment to the surviving limbs 

 of the parent plant, but to a foreigner also ; for, exactly as described 

 by Pernetty, there has emerged from the side of the crust, near the 

 base, a very fine specimen of the Empelrum riibram (an exact represen- 

 tative of our northern Cranebcrry, Empctnim nhjrum, oidy bearing red 



