1887-88.] the Scottish Alpine Botanical Club. 185 



Shortly after entering Norwegian waters, the steamer dropped 

 anchor to allow the Customhouse officers to come on board 

 and make their inspection of luggage, &c. This official 

 inspection over, the " St Sunniva " steamed on to Lervik, a 

 small village with a beautiful bay on the east of the island 

 of Stordo. Here the vessel anchored for the night, and 

 early in the morning we weighed anchor, and shortly after- 

 wards entered the great Hardanger Fjord. The morning 

 was lovely, and at an early hour most of us were on deck 

 witnessing the beautiful scenery through which we were 

 passing. The vessel reached Odde about 8 a.m. After 

 breakfast the whole party landed, and having deposited our 

 luggage in Proestegaard's Hotel, where beds had been previ- 

 ously engaged for our party, we started on a botanical 

 excursion to the BuarbraB. Odde is a small village at the end 

 of the Sor Fjord, a branch of the great Hardanger Fjord. On 

 leaving Odde our path was along the banks of a river which 

 issued from a small lake called " Sandven Vand." We were 

 particularly impressed with the luxuriance of the vegetation, 

 most of the plants being well known in many sub-alpine 

 districts of Scotland. Linncva borealis was growing most 

 profusely everywhere, and was in beautiful flower. We 

 noticed a quantity of Campanula rotundifolia, with very 

 small flowers which may possibly be the variety named 

 parvijlora. After reaching the lake, which is fully a mile 

 from Odde, we rowed across in boats to the mouth of the 

 Jordal, a large river which issues from the Buarbr* Glacier. 

 From the colour of the water we could easily see that it was 

 of glacier origin. The Jordal valley contams several farms. 

 At these fruit appeared plentiful and excellent. The 

 children everywhere were offering us fruit, such as straw- 

 berries, cherries, plums, raspberries, &c. Here we saw the 

 "hay telegraph." This consists of a strong wire stretching 

 from the farm-house to a point high up the mountain. On 

 this wire bundles of hay or sticks are slid down as occasion 

 requires. 



We kept the course of this stream all the way to the 

 glacier, and saw many rare alpines gTOwing in great pro- 

 fusion, including Woodsia ilvensis which here, and in the 

 districts of Norway visited by the Club, appeared to be the 

 most common fern. Having reached the glacier, we were 



