IN THE WESTERN AZORES. 7 
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teins above Flamingos. Spartium junceum and Asclepias 
Jruticosa (growing on the banks of a ravine, where a river 
crosses the line of hills and forms a waterfall in its approach 
to the town) may be indigenous, though very local. About Fla- 
mingos, the banks of the river are covered with many species of 
Ferns, and a few of the mountain shrubs are seen, the seeds of 
which probably come down with the streams, as Menziesia 
polifolia and Calluna vulgaris ; the former of which is ex- 
tremely abundant on the hill-sides between Flamingos and 
the Caldeira, and is doubtless the crimson-flowered heath 
mentioned by Messrs. Bullar in their account of the Azores. 
Though the orange and lemon ripen their fruit at Flamingos, 
cultivation ceases altogether within a thousand feet above the 
village ; the highest crops being the potato and “ yam,” as it 
is called, but it is apparently the Caladiuin esculentum, The 
proximity of the clouds probably arrests cultivation at this 
moderate altitude; the * yam " being better adapted to with- 
stand moisture than the other cultivated food-crops of the - 
Azores ; indeed, it thrives best in wet or marshy places. 
hout the upper limits of cultivated ground, where patches 
of Myrica Faya and other indigenous shrubs intermingle with 
the spaces cleared for the crops, I saw Rosmarinus officinalis” 
and Lavandula Stechas,; now quite wild, yet possibly originat- 
ing from the cottage-gardens of Flamingos, in which they are 
planted ; as I did not meet with them in other parts of 
Fayal, or in other islands. Above the region of cultivation, 
there is a broad belt of natural wood, which grows up again 
as it is cut down for fuel. It consists chiefly of Erica sco- 
paria, Myrica Faya,Myrsine retusa, and a species of Juniperus, 
which the natives call “ Cedros ;" the latter, being very abun- 
dant in the Azores, causes several places to be called by its 
name of Cedros.  Intermixed with these, but chiefly in the 
ravines down which the mountain streams rush rapidly, the - 
Vaccinium Maderense displays its fine clusters of long droop- —— 
ing blossoms. A large-flowered Rubus sends long rambling — 
shoots among the other shrubs, to the great inconvenience | 
a botazioa peshin and the stad <isens Hn P 
