MISSION OF COLLECTOE TO BRAZIL. 37 



short intermissions. I have, therefore, been kept indoors most 

 of the day, and have devoted the day to the study of the Portu- 

 guese language. 



June 10th. — A very wet day. The wind blowing from the 

 south-east drives before it large masses of dark heavy clouds, 

 which, when creeping along the mountain sides, let fall their 

 watery contents in torrents. This is considered the dry season 

 here, but I am informed that it is by no means an uncommon 

 thing to have several wet days together, even in the driest 

 months of the year. 



JiiHB llth. — This being a fine morning I set out at 8 o'clock 

 to explore the hills immediately west of Tijuca. They are all 

 covered with thick forest, except where small patches on the lower 

 slopes have been cleared for the cultivation of coffee, mandioc, 

 or oranges, and where the rocky sides of the higher parts are too 

 precipitous and smooth to afford foothold to trees of any size; 

 but even such places are often covered with a luxuriant vegeta- 

 tion, for there are numerous species which only want a crack in 

 the granite wherein to insert their roots to enable them to live 

 and flourish. 



There is a very neat little shrub {Goffea, sp.), plentiful in the 

 forests I have visited to-day ; it is now covered with large clusters 

 of beautiful blue berries about the size of peas ; the flower I have 

 not seen, but the plant loaded with its fruit, as it is here now, is 

 very pretty. I took specimens of the plant, and gathered a few 

 seeds. It is No. 1 in the dried collection.^ No. % (Pleroma 

 semidecandmm), a melastomaceous shrub 6 or 7 feet in height, 

 with large purple flowers, grows also plentifully on the higher and 

 opener parts of the hills. Near the summit of one of the peaks 

 (the most southerly of the Tijuca range) the old trees are 

 covered with one or two species of orchids^ but they are not in 

 bloom, 



June 12^/t. — Took the same range of hills for my excursion 

 to-day, but kept more to the northward. On the trunk of an old 

 tree in the forest, at an elevation of about 1500 feet above the 

 sea, I found three plants of a species of Cattleya^ not in bloom ; 

 hoping to find some more, I examined a great many more of the 

 trees, but I only saw another plant, and that was far beyond my 



• TLe plants have been named by Dr. Lindley from the specimens sent 

 home, so far as their state allowed of their being identified. Where flowers 

 have not been sent, of course it is frequently impossible to determine them 

 "without the sacrifice of more time than the object would justify. 



