32 EXCURSIONS IN MADEIRA 



trees starting from the clefts of the rocks, dwarfish and distorted : 

 they afford good, but small fruit, and seem, on the lower parts of 

 the island, to take the place of the laurels, which confine themselves 

 to the higher regions, unless cultivated. The road nearer the sea, 

 however, affords occasionally, in addition, the perfume of the mimosa 

 cornuta, (the seeds of which I suppose have been introduced from 

 the coast of Africa) delightful at a short distance, but too power- 

 ful when near. The grass, briza media, vulgarly called maiden- 

 hair in England, abounds all over the western side of the island ; 

 nor must I omit to mention the oestrum vespertinum, {bella noite of 

 the Portuguese) the flowers of which (although it is said to exhale 

 a noxious odour from its leaves) smell deliciously in the evening. 

 After passing the valley and torrent, where the oftundo sagittata is 

 thickly planted, the approach and descent to Camera de Lobos 

 afforded some splendid cacti, rising to the height of small trees, 

 and with trunks or stems nearly as thick as my body : they were 

 the loftiest that I had ever seen of that species, with the excep- 

 tion of those in the Botanic Garden at Lisbon. I should mention, 

 however, that there is a large mass of basalt in the bed of this 

 torrent, wliich is full of small cavities, Uned with acicular crystals 

 of mesotype, interrupted here and there by bi-pyramidal, and pris- 

 matic crystals of carbonate of Hme, frequently an inch long. I did 



stituted for the thea are, the symplocos alstonia, which was supposed by Baron de 

 Humboldt to have been infinitely beneficial to himself and M. Bonpland, from the 

 favourable action of its astringent and stimulating qualities on the gastric system, and 

 as a sudorific ; they found it a powerful preservative against their frequent exposure 

 to rain on the Cordillieres: {Plantes 6quinoxiales, 1. 1., p. 185 :) — the camellia japonica, 

 which belongs to the theacece, and is much used even in China, and also possessing 

 astringent and stimulating qualities : the rhamnus teezans, the cussonia paragua, and 

 the ceanothus Americanus, which are all bitter, styptic, and act upon the nerves ; 

 whereas the sida, which belongs to the malvacea, is emollient and calming, (Decan- 

 dolle. Essai sur les Prop. Medicates des Plants,) and did it act like the thea, would 

 be the first-known exception, to a family which has a remarkable unity of properties. 



