Regarding the Mora of the Alpes Maritimes. 381 



and Ventimiglia, in shaded places among the ohves, or 

 along some of the river-sides, during the early summer 

 months, presents a luxuriant growth of herbs, amongst which 

 Gladiolus, Narcissi'^, Allium neapolitanum. Arum italicum, 

 and Arum ariseum are prominent. 



But the characteristic expanses of the country along the 

 coast are the bare hill-sides, which are exposed during a 

 rainless summer to the full glare of a scorching sun, where 

 species of Eiiphorhia, Cistus, Hdianthemum, Galium, Thymus, 

 Lavandula, Rosmarinus, Myrtus, Coris, and species from 

 several genera of Leguminosce, amongst them the attractive 

 but terribly spinous Calcycotome spinosa and Spartium junceum. 

 Along the shore Alyssum, Glaucium, Cineraria maritima, 

 Moricandia, Diotis, and other sea-beach plants occur, some of 

 which are very widely spread throughout Europe. Plants 

 growing upon the dry and scorched slopes have a distinct 

 character of their own ; their leaves are small, often linear, 

 and rolled up at the edges, more commonly still they are 

 coriaceous or fleshy ; the whole plant is woody and low- 

 growing, appearing truly as if it had a hard time of it, at 

 least through the long summer. These characters particu- 

 larly impressed us at the first, as so clearly offering 

 resemblance to the character of plants such as Ledum, 

 Diapensia, Draha, Andromeda, Loiscleuria, Phyllodoce, that 

 we had noticed as especially characteristic of the exposed 

 slopes of Lapland."* In the one case it is the hardship 

 of a scorching sun and intense radiation, in the other it 

 is freezing winds, but the effect upon the plants growing in 

 these exposed places is the same, whether the difficulties 

 they encounter in their struggle for existence be those 

 associated with a frozen or with an arid zone. The plants 

 of the more shady ravines — Pistacia Lcntiscus, Coriaria, 

 Nerhim Oleander, Myrtus, Coronilla, Arum, Serapias, Ophrys, 

 &c. — are no less characteristically southern. On the higher 

 levels away from the sea the lemons, oranges, figs, and olives, 

 the delight of all visitors to the Eiviera, have disappeared. 

 Choice gardens, such as that of Mr Hanbury at La Mortola, 

 where so many semi-tropical plants exist, if transplanted to 

 one of the valleys ten miles away from the sea-shore, 

 would succumb to the frosts of the first winter. 



* See Trails. Bot. Soc. Edin., vol. xvii. p. 444, 



