“114 BOTANICAL INFORMATION. 
peculiarities there adverted to; it is, indeed, almost shrubby 
at the base, and thickly covered with the old persistent leaves. 
In my specimens, the leaves, moreover, are not ciliated as 
they almost always are in the real L. Pyrenaica, and the calyx 
is of a different form, being more than half as long again and 
not broader. It grows on hot rocks, in the lower valleys of 
the Spanish side, whilst the L. Pyrenaica, at least wherever 
I have gathered it, is only to be seen at elevations of between 
4500 and 6000 feet above the sea on the French side. lf the 
name of Lychnis fruticulosa be not occupied, I should pro- 
pose applying it to this species. i 
** The only excursion of any importance that I had leisure to 
make from Bagnères de Luchon was on the mountains behind 
the Maladetta. I crossed the Port dela Picade; slept at the 
town of Benasque, the next day ascended the ridge of the 
Ardonnex between the Pass of Castanése, already celebrated 
for its botanical riches, and the Maladetta ; descended by the 
wild gorge of Baliviérna at the foot of the Maladetta, slept the 
second night at the Spanish Hospice, and returned on the 
_ third morning over the Port de Benasque to Bagnéres. The 
first and third days my way lay over the well-beaten track of 
former naturalists, and which I had myself visited before ; but 
the second day was on comparatively new ground, and though 
I did not gather any thing absolutely new, I made a very 
successful quest, and seldom has a single herborization been 
rewarded with a greater variety of vegetation. Leaving Be- - : 
nasque in the morning the rocky pastures showed themselves - 
clothed with sweet herbs, prickly Leguminose, and other plants 
indicative of a dry southern climate; most of these, it is true 
were much scorched up with heat and drought, still, enough 
remained to prove the extent and variety that had prevailed, - 
and a little higher up, great masses of Astragalus aristatus, 
and some large Umbelli ifere, were still in very good fruit. As 1 
gradually ascended into the Alpine regions, I found the com- 
mon Pyrenzean species in great beauty of flower and fructifica- 
tion, and met with many of the rarer ones, as Viola Cenisil, 
Alyssum finm Papaver aurantiacum, Gu Ermas: 
