32 OBSERVATIONS ON HOLL’S LIST. 
a little more remote from the sea, or in less exposed situations, 
are a somewhat more bushy and dwarfish habit, and shorter 
or smaller leaves, which, in the recent plant, are also rather 
more shining perhaps than usual. Such specimens are by no 
means confined to this spot, but are found on every rock or 
wall of peculiar aridity or sunny exposure: and, as it may well 
be supposed, where the differences are so slight, every inter- 
mediate grade is found leading into more luxuriant, larger- 
leaved, stouter individuals, which, as well as the above, I am 
quite unable to distinguish from P. officinalis, L. It is one of 
the very commonest plants of the Island; occurring on almost 
every rock or wall, chiefly below 1000 feet, in an endless 
variety of modifications of size and luxuriance, as in England 
and elsewhere. My P. gracilis isa very different species, both 
in characters, habit, and locality; being an extremely rare 
sylvan plant, which I have only yet found in a single spot. 
* Ficus Carica, Linn." occurs principally on the south 
coast, but not exclusively so, being cultivated in most places of 
similar low elevation also on the north coast. And, which is 
more remarkable, the only occasion on which I have met with 
the Fig in a naturalized state in Madera was ten or twelve 
miles up one of the principal ravines in the north, that of the 
Ribeira de S. Jorge, far beyond every vestige of cultivation; 
whither it must have owed its introduction solely to accident, 
and where it was flourishing prodigiously, though at a consi- 
derable elevation. 
The inferiority of the dired figs of Madera to those thatareim- 
ported, is owing entirely to ignorance of the proper modeof pre- 
paration, added to the difficulty arising from a climate in which 
a constant and most copious deposition of moisture takes place 
on all substances possessed of more than ordinary powers of 
radiation, or which, by rapid evaporation from their surface, 
are cooled down to a lower temperature than that of the warm 
circumambient atmosphere of Madera, —such as metals, smooth 
leather, and plants or fruits undergoing the process of drying - 
for the herbarium or for domestic purposes. From both these - 
causes, but chiefly the last, it is, that, not only the Figs, but 
d 
