284 NOTES ON THE BOTANY 
botanist make, who from the shores of Brazil, is suddenly 
transported to the flats of the Malouines! To those immense 
forests, countless shrubs, and impenetrable thickets, which 
had perpetually arrested his steps and gaze, succeed bare 
hillocks, and boundless plains, not a tree, or even a real 
shrub, breaks the uniformity of these vast solitudes. The 
traveller, assailed by wind, rain, and hail, has often to tra- 
verse many miles before reaching the slightest shelter; for 
the earth itself, as uniform as its vegetation, presents no 
jutting rock among its valleys, nor any of the hollows which . 
are so common in wild and uncultivated regions. Notwith- 
standing, however, this extraordinary nakedness, there is no 
country where the soil is so thickly clad with a dense, though 
low, covering; for almost all the indigenous herbaceous 
plants and little shrubs, are provided with creeping roots and 
off-sets that strike into the ground, by which they are firmly 
fastened to the soil, and woven one among another,—a won- 
derful provision of nature, doubtless intended to protect vege- 
tation from the destructive power of those tempestuous 
winds so prevalent in these latitudes. 
* A stay of twenty-six days, and twelve botanizing excur- 
sions, afforded one hundred and eight distinct species of 
flowering plants; and I shall hardly suppose that more than 
a quarter part of the productions of the island can have es- 
caped my notice, or that more than one hundred and forty 
‘species, or thereabouts, can exist on the Island of Soledad ; 
for my researches were very diligently pursued. The circum- 
stance, too, that M. Gaudichaud, a skilful and close observer, 
only found, during his stay of nearly three months, eleven. 
plants which I had not gathered, confirms this opinion; and 
out of these eleven, the Azolla and Rumex acetosa are only — Be 
cited by him from memory, while the Veronica decussata was 
given him from the other island, thus reducing the difference 
between us to eight. On the whole, therefore, the Flora of 
these islands may be said to be richer than a first glance — 
would lead one to suppose. _ 
