ON THE OEGAN MOUNTAINS. 283 



Alstrcemeria nemorosa, Gardn., Fuchsia integrifolia, and many 

 beautiful Ferns and Melastomads ; and after ascending again 

 for some time through a well wooded tract, the stems of the 

 trees in which we found to be covered with the beautiful Epi- 

 phyllum Russellianum, we entered upon a steeper portion of the 

 mountain covered with large shrubs. These I found to consist 

 of Melastomads^ fruticose Composites, Vacciniums, a Wein- 

 mannia, a Gaidtheria, and great abundance of a new and beau- 

 tiful Escallonia {E. Organensis, Gardn.), with rose-coloured 

 blossoms. The summit of this peak consists of several enormous 

 loose blocks of granite, covered with Lichens, small species of 

 Orchids, Gesneras ; and where there is a little accumulation 

 of soil, Hippeastrum Organense. Here, also, as I have already 

 stated, small plants of Fuchsia integrifolia grow on the nearly 

 bare rocks. Besides the plants already enumerated, I added the 

 following to my collections on this ascent. A beautiful tree- 

 fern, from six to ten feet high, growing in the wooded ravine, 

 which since my return to England I find to be perfectly iden- 

 tical with the tree-fern of the Cape of Good Hope, Hemitelia 

 capetisis, R. Br., which is a remarkable fact in the geogra- 

 phical distribution of the tribe to which it belongs, as tree-ferns 

 are much less widely distributed than the smaller herbaceous 

 ones. In an open spot at a greater elevation grows abundance 

 of a species of Lomaria, with a thick stem about three feet high, 

 and large pinnated leaves, which gives it very much the appear- 

 ance of a Zamia. This also seems to be a plant common to the 

 Cape and Brazil. Along with this fern, but in a still more open 

 locality, where the soil is peaty and moist, grows in very large 

 patches another fine species of Prepusa {P. Hookeriana, Gardn.), 

 a figure of which has lately been published in the ' Botanical 

 Magazine.' It is an herbaceous plant, which throws up a stem 

 about a foot and a half high, bearing from three to six flowers, 

 the large inflated calyces of which, together with the stem, are 

 of a deep crimson colour. In dry places on the summit there 

 is great plenty of a pretty procumbent suffruticose Cinchonaceous 

 plant with small blue flowers ; an Oxalis, several Vacciniums, 

 a procumbent Gaultheria, perhaps G. elliptica, two or three 

 species of Hypericum and Hahenaria. In bushy shady places 

 I found Drymis Granatensis, an Hydrocotyle, a small Erio- 

 caulon, several Mosses, Lichens, and a number of pretty little 

 ferns. Several Composites also rewarded my researches, among 

 which I may mention a fine Flotovia, two or three species of 

 Senecio, an Eriyeron, and a very handsome herbaceous plant, 

 about four feet high, with a woolly stem, and leaves which are 

 large, and not unlike those of a Verbascum. It produces a 

 large loose panicle of orange-coloured flowers, and belongs to 



