BOTANICAL INFORMATION. 61 
enable the botanist to explore each island; and there are ten! It 
is highly probable that there is little variety in their productions. 
St. Nicholas, which was the chief scene of my labours, is the largest, 
loftiest, and most fertile in the groupe: no opportunity of going to 
Fayo was ever presented, and St. Jago and St. Antonio were then suf- 
fering from pestilence ; while, at St. Vincent, where a flourishing town 
will probably soon arise, at one of the finest ports of the Atlantic, there 
was hardly the possibility of remaining, for want of accommodation 
and provisions. Mr. Kendall, the British consul, was occupying a 
miserable hut, his own house having been destroyed by a hurricane ; 
and I was compelled to pay a dollar a night, for permission to shelter 
myself in the cottage of a negro, where there was no bed. 
And now to refer to the plants which I sent you: the most interesting 
is the Sarcostemma Daltoni (Decaisne) which is a long-stalked, pendent, 
leafless Asclepiadea, graced, in the months of August and September, 
with innumerable branches of pale yellow flowers. It is a rooting 
species, easy of culture and increase, and it requires much sun and heat 
and almost no moisture. It forms the chief characteristic of the littoral 
vegetation, where the coast is dry, burning, and African in aspect, and 
adorns the rocks with its thick garlands. Then comes a Crassulaceous 
plant, with rosettes of large glaucous leaves and yellow blossoms: it is 
a native of the mountainous region, and consequently must receive less 
warmth and rather more water than the Sarcostemma. A Nephrodium, 
with tuberous roots, is pretty and certainly new ; Asplenium Canariense, 
Notochlena Marante, Davallia Canariensis, and an Aspidium (I think 
odoratum) with large silky rhizomes, must be kept rather dry. There is - 
a scrap of the wild Zoe of the Islands, some roots of a little-known Um- 
belliferous plant, which seems to be the Tetrapleura insularis of Parla- | 
tore, and four small specimens of Zuphorbia Tuckeyana, which have little 
chance, it is to be feared, of surviving the voyage; bulbs of an Umbilicus, 
probably Aorizonfalis; and seeds of Poinciana pulcherrima, and of a 
lovely Cassia ; last, not least, tubers of the only Orchidea of St. Nicho- 
las, which I could never detect in flower or seed, its season of inflores- _ 
cence being perhaps the spring ; it requires shade and moderate warmth, 
and is doubtless new: I shall enjoy to see it bloom with you. 
In order to gratify you, I have charged my conscience with the - 
murder of some of the few Dryads of the Cape de Verds:—they are so — on 
small in stature that you will pronounce them quite elün! The next 
