300 BOTANY OF SPAIN. [Ociobsr, 



The plain, well named Huerta (garden) of Valencia, has been 

 often described. It is a rich mass of cultivation, fertilized by 

 the elaborate system of irrigation for which it is indebted to 

 the Moors, consisting of canals traversing the country above 

 its level, from which large or small ramifications are carried 

 into or along the edge of every field. The rivers, which from 

 the shortness of their course are nowhere considerable, are so 

 drained by the canals that in summer they may be crossed dry- 

 shod as they approach the sea. A region of this character is 

 seldom favourable to the botanist ; and the mountains, if that 

 name may be given to the heights which support the great 

 plateau of Castille, are too far off to be within reach of an or- 

 dinary excursion. The wild plants therefore were chiefly those 

 of cultivated ground, or of the damp borders of streams; of the 

 former class, two were especially abundant and conspicuous : 

 Allium roseuin, which had delighted me on the hills of Patras 

 and elsewhere, with its umbels of brilliant flowers; and a tali 

 large-flowered Silene, with something of the port and colour of 

 the elegant Lychnis Viscaria. This plant, which is not in the 

 French Floj-a, I make out to be S. turbinata of Gussone. Of 

 more common plants I observed Anagallis arvensis, and a fre- 

 quent corn plant in eastern and southern Europe, Saponaria 

 Vaccaria. The waterside species which I remarked were Eu- 

 phorbia pilosa, a large species, in a dense greyish coat, which 

 frequents similar situations in the valley of the Rhine, and other 

 parts of the South ; the universal Iris Pseudacorus; and a gigantic 

 Thalidrum, whicli I had not the means of determining. This 

 is a poor tale of plants for so southern a region; but after about 

 an liour's walk, 1 came to a patch of rocky ground, which, being- 

 above the region of the irrigation, had remained in the state of 

 garrigue, or had only vines and olives growing on it, and this 

 furnished me with plants of a different order and greater variety. 

 Here I first saw the lurid and night-odorous Stock of English 

 greenhouses, Matthiola tristis, a plant which also grows in Pro- 

 vence. The garrigue abounded with the narrow-leaved and 

 silvery Convolvulus Cneor'um, bringing reminiscences of Megara 

 and Corinth. A Hedysarum, T believe H. humile, made its ap- 

 pearance in small quantity, as did the uniformly grey and downy 

 Mercurialis tomentosa, unlike the dark -green hue of the two 

 English species, and with its fructification not spiked but clus- 



