1861.] BOTANY OF SPAIN. 229 



which form a conspicuous, and, at first sight, a puzzling feature 

 in the country about Palermo. The plain is crossed here and 

 there by gullies, cut deep into the soil by the torrents of rain 

 which must descend at certain seasons from the adjacent moun- 

 tains. 



The conditions of soil and climate in Catalonia, are much the 

 same as in the Mediterranean provinces of France, and the 

 botany accordingly is very similar. It is the country of the 

 Olive, the Fig, the Vine, and, further south, of the spreading and 

 shady but stifF-leaved Caruba {Ceratonia Siliqua) but not of the 

 Orange and the Myrtle. The Aloe {Agave americana) , and the 

 Prickly Pear {Cactus Opuntia) are found ; but not, as in Sicily, 

 in wild abundance, forming a great feature in the landscape. 

 The first chiefly appears in the form of hedges (as in Roussillon) ; 

 and the Cactus I did not observe further north than Tarragona. 

 There too I first came upon the Palmetto {ChamcBrops humilis), 

 the dwarfish representative of the mighty family of Palmce ; that 

 stiff" low prickly bush which half covers with its chevaux-de-frise 

 of fan-like leaves the vast wastes of Sicily. It abounds also on 

 the line of road from Tarragona to Valencia, and its fibres are 

 made into a kind of matting, the production of which is part of 

 the domestic industry of the country. The plants of the Catalo- 

 nian landscape were chiefly those of the rocky calcareous wilds of 

 Languedoc and Provence, called locally Garrigues, from the pro- 

 vincial name (according to M. Leonce de Lavergne) of the dwarf 

 evergreen Oak which covers them ; the Quercus coccifera, in 

 which the Kermes insect, the European variety of the cochineal, 

 elaborates its brilliant Aje. This, and Quercus Hew, are the 

 principal representatives of the old Order Amentace(E. Pistacia 

 Lentiscus, the !Mastic-tree of Scripture (to my surprise I saw 

 little of the still fin er P. Terebinthus, though equally or more 

 common in the south of France) ; the fragrant Tree-Heath 

 {Erica arbored) ; the still more powerfully odorous woody 

 Thyme {Thymus vulgaris), inferior in beauty, but superior in 

 odour to our T. SerpyUum (which grows there also) ; that common 

 southern plant, the Rosemary {Rosmarinus officinalis) ; the Spa- 

 nish Broom of our gardens {Spartium junceum) with its intoxi- 

 cating perfume ; the prickly Broom of the south of France 

 {Genista Scorpius), which though humbler in stature than our 

 tall Furze, colours the landscape in spring with similar masses of 



