330 Information respecting Botanical Travellers. 



laire) ; it flowers before the foliage appears, and in this state much 

 resembles the alder of Europe when loaded with its catkins. Its 

 mode of growth is upright, and it attains a height of 30 or 40 feet. 

 Large Ingas or Mimosas, and the Triplaris Americana are also com- 

 mon ; of the latter the female plant when in flower is recognizable 

 at a great distance, as well as the Chrysobalanus, that I formerly 

 mentioned as abounding below Ico, and which also grows in plenty 

 here. In passing along the eye is sometimes relieved from the flower- 

 less monotony of the woods by seeing here and there a solitary pur- 

 ple or yellow Bignonia, or an azure-blossomed Jacaranda, destitute 

 of foliage, but rearing its therefore more conspicuous and magnifi- 

 cent diadem of flowers above the other denizens of the wood ; or 

 an occasional plant of Cochlospermum serratifolium, loaded also with 

 its large and beautiful yellow bloom, attracts the attention of the 

 traveller. On dry hilly places there are abundance of small shrubs. 

 The only ones, however, that I recognized were two or three species 

 of Lantana and Krameria Ixina. Within a day's journey of Crato I 

 collected the only orchideous plant that I have seen since quitting 

 the coast, a new Oncidium, w T hich I have called 0. urophyllum. The 

 natives of the Sertao call it Rabo de Tat'u (armadillo's tail). It 

 grows in great plenty on the soft bark of a species of Geoffroya. 



It was not until I came within a few leagues of Crato that the 

 country became more verdant, and large tracts of land planted with 

 cane gave the assurance that I was approaching a place better suited 

 to my pursuits than any that I had seen since my arrival in the Ser- 

 tao. It is impossible to express to you my delight on entering into 

 this comparatively rich and smiling district, after a ride of more than 

 300 miles through one which is little better at this season of the year 

 than a desert. The evening on which I approached this town was 

 one of the most beautiful I ever remember to have seen. The sun 

 was setting in great splendour behind the Serra de Araripe, a long 

 range of hills about a league to the westward of the villa, but the 

 freshness of the country deprived his rays of that burning heat which 

 shortly before sunset is so oppressive to the traveller further down. 

 The beauty of the night, the cool and reviving feeling of the atmo- 

 sphere, and the richness of the landscape, so different from what I 

 had lately seen, all tended to produce a buoyancy of spirit such as 

 only the lover of nature can experience, and which I vainly wished 

 might prove enduring, as I felt not only at ease with myself, but 

 " at peace with all the world." 



During the journey I had added but little to my stock of speci- 

 mens. The most remarkable of them is a small Jungermannia-look- 



