6 NOTES OF A BOTANICAL TOUR 
siftora cerulea has become wild, and thrives prodigiously. 
Canna Indica is occasionally fc found wild, with flower-stalks five 
or six feet high. The Amaryllis Belladonna is abundant in 
various places about Horta. Yet these three should probably 
be regarded as introduced plants, which have passed from 
the gardens to the wilds. 
"The use of stone walls and reeds for fences is prejudicial 
to the pursuits of the botanist, who may look in vain for 
hedges or hedge-banks, meadows or pastures, about the town 
of Horta or elsewhere in the cultivated regions of Fayal. 
The pedestrian walks along very narrow paved or rocky roads, 
hemmed in between two stone walls from six to ten feet 
high, or along narrow footpaths which cross only cultivated 
fields. These peculiarities, of course, greatly affect the spon- 
taneous vegetation. What may be considered the characte- 
ristic Flora of the Azores, is very sparingly scattered about the 
town in a few spots, whose steepness or exposure has inter- 
fered to discourage the efforts of the cultivator. The wild 
plants which are met with, are chiefly annual weeds of culti- 
vated grounds, plants which thrive about inhabited places, 
and such as are adapted to exist on rocks, or in the crevices 
of stone walls. Some of these are among the commonest 
weeds of England, as Sisymbrium officinale and Sherardia ar- 
vensis. Others are still English, but among our most local 
kinds, as Cynodon Dactylon and Polycarpon tetraphyllum. 
Others, again, though quite unknown in the English Flora, are 
still plants of south Europe; as Phytolacca decandra and Por- 
tulaca oleracea. But Sida Canáriensis (of Guthrie’s collection) 
and Vicia albicans are extra-European species, derived from 
other islands of the Atlantic. 
Passing inland from Horta towards Flamingos, we gra- 
dually lose many of these ordinary species of cultivated coun- 
tries, and find the proper vegetation of the Azores, where left 
more in a state of nature. Myrica Faya and Myrsine retusa 
grow on the low hills which encircle the bay, immediately 
behind the town. Erica Azorica (of Guthrie’s collection, but 
in reality E. scoparia) and Thymus cespitosus are plentiful on 
these hills, though still more abundant on the wilder moun- 
