256 KELATION BETWEEN CLIMATE AND VEGETATION. 



these Vellozias grew a species of Physocalyx, a fruticose kind 

 of Siphocampylos, a small white-flowered Vaccinium, a Verno- 

 nia, two or three small species of Melastomacece, and on the 

 summit a beautiful little Barhacenia, with large red flowers, 

 and a few small species of Eriocaulon. 



After leaving Morro Velho I visited the cities of Marianna 

 and Ouro Preto, the country round which is very similar to that 

 I have just described ; and here again many fine plants were 

 added to my herbarium. Finally leaving the mining districts 

 early in the month of October, and travelling slowly through 

 the forest country which intervenes between them and the 

 coast, a journey of a little less than a month brought me a 

 second time to Rio de Janeiro, having been absent from it up- 

 wards of three years. There being no opportunity of getting 

 any of my packages sent to the coast afler leaving the city of 

 Oeiras, I was obliged to bring all my enormous collections 

 along with me. These ultimately required about twenty mules 

 to carry them. Three months were spent in Rio, arranging 

 part of these to send home, and three months more in a second 

 visit to the Organ Mountains, partly to recruit my health, 

 which had suffered a good deal from the fatigues and anxieties 

 which always attend such a lengthened journey as the one I had 

 just completed, and partly to make a collection of living plants 

 to take home along with me. On my return to Rio, I had only 

 a few days to prepare for returning to England ; and, early in 

 May, embarked in a ship bound for Liverpool, via Maranham, 

 in the north of Brazil. At the latter place we remained about 

 three weeks ; and althougli the general character of the country is 

 very similar to that of the maritime parts of the province of Ceara, 

 the vegetation is somewhat different, and enabled me to add con- 

 siderably to my stores. The shores of Brazil were finally left 

 on the 10th of June, and I arrived safely at Liverpool with all 

 my collections on the 11th of July, 1841, having been absent 

 five years and two months. It was a source of no little satisfac- 

 tion to myself, as well as to those who participated in my collec- 

 tions of dried plants, amounting to about 7000 species, that they 

 all arrived in the most perfect state in this country. 



Before concluding these necessarily very brief sketches of the 

 vegetation of such parts of the immense empire of Brazil as I 

 have myself visited, I purpose giving an outline of the views of 

 Von Martins on the general regions of vegetation into which 

 the whole of Brazil may be divided, and which, I trust, will not 

 prove unacceptable to those who are interested, not only in the 

 rich flora of that country, but in the geograpliical distribution of 

 plants generally. The paper in which this learned and accom- 

 plished naturalist has exposed his views on the subject is in the 



