192 RELATION BETWEEN CLIMATE AND VEGETATION. 



within the last twenty years, that the rains have been much less 

 since the country near the city has been so much cleared as it 

 now is of the forests by which it was once covered. 



During the first few weeks, my walks were confined to the 

 shores, the valleys, and the low wooded hills in the vicinity of 

 the city. On the shores I found the vegetation to vary, as 

 might be expected, according to the nature of the soil, which, 

 when it is muddy, produces thick plantations of Rhizophora 

 Mangle, Avicennia tomentosa, and Laguncularia racemosa, grow- 

 ing quite into the sea. There also, but on the more elevated 

 parts, the Cashew-nut tree is found. Where the shore is formed 

 of loose white sand, it is covered with large patches of Ipomoea 

 Pes Caprce : the long-rooting shoots bind together the soil much 

 in the same way as those of Elymus arenarius and other creeping 

 grasses do that of the shores of Europe. Here also are found 

 Remirea marilima, Polygala Cyparissias, and the glaucous- 

 leaved Acicarpha spathulata, which throws out its spreading 

 branches ; while amid these, and growing almost into the sea, there 

 is great abundance of Sophora tomentosa, a shrub which varies 

 from two feet to ten feet in height, and which, during the flowering 

 season, is covered with large racemes of yellow blossoms, not 

 unlike tliose of the laburnum. This plant has been published by 

 Schrader, and taken up by De Candolle, in his ' Prodromus,' as 

 a new species, under the name of Sophora littoralis ; but it is 

 certainly not distinct from the old S. tomentosa of Linnaeus. I 

 have found it all along the coast of Brazil, from Rio to the 

 Equator. Intermingled with the Sophora grows the Pitanga 

 (Eugenia Michelii, Lam.), a gay myrtle-like shrub, which has 

 a fine appearance, either when covered with its numerous white 

 blossoms, or when loaded with its scarlet fruit, about the size of 

 cherries. Twining among the branches of these and other 

 shrubs along the shore, I found beautiful specimens of Aristo- 

 lochia macrura, and A. rumicifolia. These sandy shores also 

 abound with Opuntia brasiliensis, often covered with a cochineal 

 insect ; and Myrrhinium atropurpureum, an anomalous species 

 of Myrtaceae. 



Where the shores are rocky the vegetable forms again difl^er. 

 The peculiarities of such places may be well remarked upon a 

 small promontory called the Morro-do-Flamingo, that juts into 

 the bay about two miles south of Rio. It rises about 150 feet 

 above the level of the sea, and is partly cultivated, and partly 

 clothed with its natural vegetation, which exhibits itself in the 

 shape of large shrubs and herbaceous plants, reaching to the very 

 edge of the sea. On the rocky parts, which are apparently desti- 

 tute of soil, several angular Cacti spread out their grotesque 

 limbs ; and on its nearly perpendicular face, great quantities of a 



