OBSERVED DURING THE RORAIMA EXPEDITION. 259 



dealing with the vegetation of Roraima itself I can only speak of that of the south- 

 eastern side of this mountain, which alone I was ahle to examine closely. We spent 

 nearly a month on this side, where it is treeless, savannah-like, and swampy, and we 

 climbed to the top of the mountain by a ledge running obliquely up the south-eastern 

 face of its cliff (sec fig. 2, p. 257). 



It was not till we reached the top that we saw the most remarkable features in the 

 wonderful plant-life of this very distinct area of vegetation. Even while only 

 approaching the base of the mountain (which for convenience of description I will take 

 to be marked on the south-eastern side by the bed of the Kookenaam river), and while 

 we were still far off, we met for the first time with plants which we afterwards found 

 commonly on Horaima, the outposts, as it were, of the remarkable group of plant-forms 

 centred on Roraima. From the moment when the first of these distinctive plants of 

 the mountain was met with till the moment, some weeks later, when we reached the top, 

 we ever travelled onward into a more and more peculiar flora. 



Our discovery, on the savannahs a full day's journey from Roraima, of the first outpost 

 of the vegetation of that mountain was a very distinct event. We found a well-marked 

 dense patch, perhaps some 40 yards in diameter, of Abolboda Sceptrum, Oliver, nov. sp. 

 [No. 312], a compact and dwarf, yucca-like plant, with a rosette, perhaps a foot and a half 

 in diameter, of most acutely needle-pointed leaves. This plant appeared again in patches 

 once or twice before we reached Roraima, and formed much of the turf, as it were, both 

 of the savannah slope of the base of that mountain and also of the top. It was, when- 

 ever it appeared, a constant source of annoyance and of danger, not only to the naked 

 feet of my Indian companions, but also to my own canvas-clad feet. Luckily a rumour 

 which in some way spread among us that these rosettes of vegetable bayonets were 

 poisonous, after causing some rather comic alarm, proved groundless. Where we first 

 found the plant, as also on the sloping base of the mountain, it was out of flower and, 

 though its withered flower-stems were extant, was already seedless ; but on the top we 

 found it in full and striking flower. From the centre of the rosette of leaves rises a 

 single stem, perhaps 18 inches in height, crowned by a very regularly formed whorl of 

 dependent yellow flowers. The general appearance — the facies, to use a term recognized, 

 I believe, by botanists — was remarkably like that of the yellow form of the Crown 

 Imperial {Fritillaria imperlaUs). For the botanical description of this interesting plant, 

 as indeed of all the other new plants of which I shall attempt to describe the facies, I 

 must refer to the list carefully worked out at Kew *. 



After passing the first station of Abolboda Sceptrum till we reached the actual foot of 

 Roraima, at the bed of the Kookenaam river, we continued through a country over 

 which, though it was still furnished chiefly with the ordinary savannah vegetation, were 

 scattered a few, indeed as we advanced an ever-increasing number of new plants. Across 

 this tract, about halfway between the station of Abolboda and the Kookenaam, runs the 

 Arapoo river, which, falling down from Roraima, has its course marked in a pronounced 



* It may here be mentioned that three volumes of admirable original sketches of British Guiana plants by (Sir 

 Robert?) Schomburgk exist in the Herbarium of the British Museum. Among these sketches are to be found many 

 Roraima plants, and among others ALModa Sceptrum.. 



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