OBSERVED DURING THE RORAIMA EXPEDITION. 267 
we ascended to the top of Roraima. The lower part of the ledge, for perhaps two 
thirds of its length, is wide, much broken, and very uneven. This part is somewhat 
irregularly bush-covered. Then the continuity of the ledge is suddenly almost broken 
by a deep ravine, a part of the rock having been worn away by a stream which falls on 
to it from the cliff above. The ravine thus made is almost bare of vegetation. Above, 
the ledge slopes somewhat steeply, but evenly, from the point where it commences again 
to the top, and this part of it is covered by a dwarf vegetation never more than two 
or three feet high. 
The shrubs on the part of the ledge below the ravine seem to be generally much the 
same as on the forest slope ; but among thesea few new ones appear. Among the latter 
were the very beautiful Drimys granatensis, Mutis [No. 242], with its very beautiful 
white flowers, like pendent wood-anemones, a new and beautiful Microlicia (Microlicia 
bryanthoides, Oliver, n. sp. | No. 239]), and several more species of Psychotria | Nos. 191, 
291]. There, too, was an abundance of Ше Lisianthus | No. 188 | already mentioned, and 
of Utricularia Campbelliana. 
At the bottom of the ravine into which the stream falls the rocks are bare but for a 
large number of a pretty white-flowered Myrtus (М. stenophylla, Oliv., n. sp. 
(No. 324]), which, met with nowhere else, was growing abundantly in the spray of the 
falling water. 
Beyond this ravine, on the upper part of the ledge, the true botanical paradise 
began. The main vegetation is formed of Brocchinia cordylinoides, Baker (in the axils 
of the leaves of which grows Utricularia Humboldtii), Abolboda Sceptrum, Oliv., and 
Stegolepis guianensis, Klotzsch [No. 338]. Among these were a great many plants 
entirely new to me and of most striking beauty. Many of these were shrubby, but of 
so diminutive a character as to be strictly alpine. Of these, by far the most beautiful 
was a wonderful heath-like plant, with dark green-leaved stems, stout and sturdy, but 
yet seeming almost overweighted by their great load of intensely vivid crimson star-like 
flowers. This plant | No. 308] Professor Oliver has identified as a Ledothamnus, possibly 
a variety of L. guianensis, Meissner, but of much more slender form than is attributed 
to that plant in Martius's Fl. Brasil. vii. 172. 
Another shrublet, in character recalling the ** Alpine rose " (Rhododendron ferrugi- 
neum), bore even more disproportionately large flowers, of an exquisite pink colour. It 
was a Befaria, approaching В. resinosa, Mutis | Хо. 310]. Other tiny shrubs were а 
white, feather-flowered Weinmannia (W. glabra, L. fil., хат. | Хо. 244]), a myrtle (JL n. sp. 
aff. myricoidi, H. B. K. [No. 189]), yet another species of Psychotria (P. imThurniana, 
Oliver, n. sp. [No. 163]), a Baccharis (В. Vitis-Idea, Oliver, n. sp. [No. 241]), and а 
Vaccinium (V. floribundum ? H. B. K. [No. 329]). On most of these tiny shrubs was 
growing an appropriately tiny Misseltoe, Phoradendron Roraime, Oliver, n. sp. | No. 323], 
a miniature of an English plant. Among all these, many other interesting plants 
oceurred. There grew, in far greater luxuriance and size than below, the pitcher- 
plant, Heliamphora nutans, Benth. | Хо. 258]; also great masses of two species of Xyris, 
Ж. Fontanesiana, Kunth [No. 257], and X. witsenioides, Oliv., n. sp. [No. 240], the latter 
very striking and curious by reason of the Witsenia-like habit of their dark green-leaved 
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