210 TRAXSACTIOXS AND PROCEEDINGS OF THE [Sess. lxiii. 



Sckcuchzcri, Hoppe, with its handsome globular heads, was 

 abundant. 



Our journeying was now homewards. From the 

 Engadine to Chur, along the Albula Pass, was a long 

 drive of nearly fifty miles through scenery so rugged as to 

 batfie my power of description, and along rich fertile 

 meadows of lovely quiet pastoral beauty. In the wood 

 through which the road climbed with seven long bends, 

 Nigritelln angustifolia. Rich., formed an uncommon display. 

 The roadsides were bright with Campanula 'pusilla, Hicnk., 

 both white and blue, and Linaria alpina, L., and variously 

 coloured Gcntiana caiiipestris, L., and amidst a great debacle 

 of riven rocks, while our horses were eating loaves of brown 

 bread, were gathered Primula viscosa, All. ; F. integrifolia., L. ; 

 along with the hybrids, F. Murctiana, Mor., and F. Din- 

 yana. Lag. 



The evening shades were falling fast before the tired 

 horses were driven into Chur. Here these reminiscences of 

 our hunt for Primulas must end. With an earlier start, 

 our record would probably have been richer. Enough has 

 been said, perhaps more than enough but for your courtesy 

 and patience, to point to the exceeding luxuriance of the 

 Alpine and sub-Alpine Moras of the Upper Engadine and 

 South-East Tyrol. Each of these districts possesses a 

 ilora of its own, and of a distinct character, yet they also 

 are enriched with identical plants which have found a 

 liome in these far distant districts where, perhaps, they 

 were not originally indigenous. Naturally, the floras of 

 our tour were more closely related to each other than to 

 the Alpine flora of our own country. At first one looks 

 to find the same species, and perhaps the self-same flowers 

 on every beetling crag of an equal level above the sea, or 

 in all humid corries or dark rocky fissures or stony wastes 

 on a mountainside. Ikit the geograpliieal botanist records 

 other agents that have influenced the distribution of plants, 

 and shows that, in the nature of things, Alpine plants must 

 vary according to their liabitats, the ])revailiiig climate, the 

 distance from the sea, the nature of rocks and soil, and 

 so forth. Centres of distribution of plant life there have 

 doubtless always l)een, but many plants have now become 

 naturalised tliat are not native to the spots in which they 



