4XiS Botanical Excursion in Lower Styria. 



conducted us over the Carinthian frontier to St. Veith. There, by 

 good luck, we met with another clergyman who invited us to sup 

 with him on the way back, and treated us as handsomely as the 

 gentleman with whom we dined ; and so we reached Schonstein 

 somewhere about two in the morning. One evil of the warm 

 hospitality in the Slavonian provinces is, that the inns are neg- 

 lected by respectable people and are consequently dirty and bad. 

 To a person travelling through the country for the first time it 

 is very pleasant, and he acquires a knowledge of people^s feelings 

 and mode of thinking better than in other countries at inns and 

 coffee-houses ; but what is gained by the traveller is lost by the 

 botanist, and I often regretted, in the magnificent castles where 

 I was staying, that I could not be out at five in the morning 

 and return at seven in the evening, without waiting for break- 

 fast or dinner with the family. 



From Cilli I went to Gonowitz and thence ascended the Bacher, 

 but found nothing of interest ! Pyrola uniflora, Doronicum 

 austriacum, which is pretty common, and plants that are here on 

 all alps, Veratrum album, Arnica montana, Cacalia alpina, &c. A 

 Tyrolese botanist ascended it in this month, November, and found 

 Botrychium matricarioides, the first good plant that was ever 

 brought from it. It has been explored by many botanists from 

 all sides, but has been universally condemned as the most thank- 

 less mountain in all Styria, though from its great breadth and 

 perfect wildness much might be expected from it. Mineralogists 

 give it a better character. 



Returning to Stattenberg I ascended the Donati, the most 

 striking feature in Lower Styria from its abrupt precipitous face 

 towards the north. Though not higher than the Wotsch it pre- 

 sents a great many alpine plants, none of which are found on 

 the latter: Athamanta cretensis,Draba aizoides, Atragene, Primula 

 Auricula, Hieracium flexuosum,^ . K.it., Rosa alpina and Saxifraga 

 Aizoon. Lower down were Prunella alba, Dianthus plumarius, 

 Medicago carstiensis, Quercus Cerris and other things often seen 

 elsewhere. The bathing-place, Ashitsch, has rendered the Do- 

 nati so famous that I expected more from it. Possibly the visit- 

 ors have extirpated some of the plants, to take home as keep- 

 sakes. Making another ascent up the Wotsch I found the vege- 

 tation quite changed, but nothing that I had not already col- 

 lected elsewhere. On my way from Stattenberg to Marburg I 

 saw Lathyrus tuberosus and Galega officinalis very abundant, and 

 in an excursion from Marburg found Orobanche Picridis, with 

 which the excursion closed ; and I returned on the 28th of July 

 to Gratz, having enriched the Flora Stiriaca with about fifteen 

 new species, in addition to the 1900 it already contained. 



