IN VARIOUS PARTS OF THE GLOBE. 163 



vertia convaUari-odora, and many other Vochyads ; Anacar- 

 dium occide?itale, Carijocar hrasiliensis, Simaruba versicolor, 

 Strychnos pseudoqiiina, Magonia glahrata, &c. 



The greater part of these trees lose their leaves in the dry 

 season. WJjen they are more numerous and close together they 

 form copses or even small woods, which have, in the language of 

 the country, particular names, and to which I shall again call 

 attention. 



The herbaceous vegetation of the Campos is too varied to be 

 easily described. Csespitose grasses are the most numerous ; 

 amongst them grow in great profusion Composites, Stellates, 

 Mallow Worts, some Papilionaceae, Hyptis, Cuphea, Polygala, 

 Lippia. Here and there specimens of many other orders, such 

 as Lysianthus, Callopisma, Evolvidris, the magnificent Goni- 

 phrena, and, above all, the elegant Eriocaulon, which, with dif- 

 ferent species of Xyris and Sduvagesia, abound in all the damp 

 and marshy spots of this region. 



It must not, however, be supposed that on entering the 

 Campos forest scenery is entirely wanting ; for it is difficult 

 to proceed for half a day without falling in with at least two 

 or three large woods, thrown as it were like so many oases 

 in the midst of the undulating and comparatively sterile vegeta- 

 tion of the Campos, to protect by their shade the source of some 

 one of the many streams which water Brazil. The traveller 

 seeks their shelter witli eagerness, and the botanist when cross- 

 ing them forgets for the moment the virgin Mattos which he has 

 left behind. The magnificent Brazilian Pine {Araucaria Bra- 

 siliensis), so common in the great forests, is also one of the 

 principal ornaments of these woods. 



On the 14th of November we entered Barbacena, the first 

 town we came to in tlie province "of Minas-Geraes. The climate 

 appeared almost temperate,* so much had we suffered from the 

 heat at Rio. For my own part, finding myself in the midst of 

 some swamps covered witli JDrosera, I fancied I had wandered 

 to some of our peat bogs in Europe. 



The road which leads from Barbacena to Ouro-Preto, the 

 capital of the province, follows the line of the sources of the Rio 

 San Francisco and the Rio de la Plata; a little beyond the 

 village of Queluz, it rises to the upper level of the great Bra- 

 zilian table-land by the Serra d'Ouro-Branco, in which are the 

 topaz mines of Capao. Few places are so interesting to the 

 botanist and general traveller as this. The Vellozia, a truly 



* The temperature is, however, on the whole but little lower than that 

 of Ivio, but it varies mere, and the constantly moving air rendeis the place 

 agreeable enough. 



