BOTANICAL INFORMATION. 149 
Catarina, and after travelling eighteen leagues, the farm of our friend, 
La Hacienda de las Naranjas, presented itself. The finest flower we saw 
during the journey was your Antigonon leptopus. t covered nearly 
every bush, and the deep rose-coloured blossoms were so abundant 
that scarcely a leaf could be seen. Cordia Gerascanthus, Quamoclit 
vulgaris, Ardisia coriacea, and Poinsettia pulcherrima, were amongst 
many others we met with: the latter grows in dark localities on the 
banks of rivulets. — Heematozylon Oampechianum (Logwood), here 
termed Brasil, is one of the most common trees of the whole district, 
and the cutting of it affords employment to a great number of people. 
Large quantities of the wood, especially that of the stems, which obtain 
double the price the branches do, are daily carried for sale to Mazatlan. 
The following day we commenced ascending the Cerro de Pinal. 
Here, for the first time, a visible change in the vegetation took place. 
Having climbed 2000 feet, we fell in with the first Oak, of which genus 
three species were collected during the ascent : at 1000 feet higher the 
Firs commenced, and soon after constituted regular forests. The trees 
are from thirty to sixty feet high. I send leaves, flowers, and ripe 
cones, but I am unable to determine the species, as books are wanting ; 
perhaps it is Pinus radiata, Don. Several fine plants were growing in 
that forest. The little Pinguicula lilacina, Schlecht., was extremely 
common. Next morning I put the plants into fet and then de- 
parted with all despatch for Mazatlan, whence we were more than a 
hundred miles distant; but we arrived in good iin e. 
We lifted anchor on the 4th of December, reached San Blas two 
days after, stayed there a few hours, and then directed our course to- 
wards Panama, where we arrived on the 19th of January, 1849, having 
been absent from that place eight months, and sailed, during that time, 
more than 23,000 miles. 
Dr. Tuomas THomson’s Scientific Mission to TRIBET. 
(Continued from page = 
ashmir, Oct. 5th, 1848. 
When I last wrote, on or about the 7th of t Angust, it was my inten- 
tion to have reported progress again on return to Lé; but on 
reaching that place I found "ai very litte | benefit would result from 
