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by the craggy rocks, attain a considerable height ; 
otherwise no tree in general, not even the fir, grows 
to any size so high on the Alps. A little further up 
are most delicious pastures, intersected with alder 
thickets, and bordered with Cacalia alpina, Aqui- 
legia alpina, Ranunculus aconitifolius, Sisymbrium 
tanacetifolium, Pyrola minor, Juncus spicatus, and 
other rarities. This beautiful quilegia, which far 
exceeds our garden kind, was very sparingly in 
flower, and I am obliged for its detection to my 
faithful attendant Francesco Borone, who here im- 
bibed that taste for botany which afterwards led 
him to Sierra Leone ; and by whose acuteness and 
activity I have often profited. Some little hillocks 
on the left of the front of the hospital are covered 
with Rhododendrum ferrugineum,among which grew 
Pyrola rotundifolia, and in the clefts of rocks the 
very rare Saponaria lutea. (Spicileg. Bot. t. 5.) 
Here I first found Lichen cucullatus, Trans. of Linn. 
Soc. vol. i. 84, t. 4, f. 7, which I am astonished any 
body can confound with Z. nivalis: the latter too 
grows here, as does L. ochroleucus, Dickson Fasc. 
Crypt. ii. 19. Descending towards the river I came . 
to a most delightful little valley, like the vale of 
Tempe in miniature, with a meandering rivulet, 
scarcely three or four feet broad, running through 
it, and bordered with abrupt precipices not much 
more in height, in which were several fairy caves 
and grottos, their entrances clothed with a tapestry 
of mantling bushes of Salix reticulata and retusa. 
These dwarf willows grow close pressed to the 
rocks, whether horizontal or perpendicular, almost 
