1861.] BOTANY or SPAIN. 301 



tered or solitary. Here I again saw Hippocrepis cilkita and 

 Smilax aspera. The decumbent Alkanna tinctoria (formerly 

 a Lithospermum) spread out as usual its stems close to the 

 ground, Avitli their terminal clusters of blue flowers, and their 

 thick covering of leaves, incrusted underneath with the dense 

 calcareous soil in which the plant delights. In the herbarium 

 it sometimes stains the paper with a violet dye. I found here, 

 though in small quantity, a species not French [angustifolia, I 

 believe), of the very southern genus Sideritis, which, by its wiry 

 look and the spinous induration of its sepals, speaks plainly of 

 the arid climates in which it flourishes. But the strangest 

 plant I saw was a bushy mass of Thorns, exactly resembling a 

 small furze-bush in winter, when without traces of leaves; until, 

 on looking for the yellow papilionaceous blossoms, I perceived 

 instead a profusion of small greenish hexandrous flowers, pen- 

 dent on short thin footstalks from near the axillse of the wiry 

 and thorny sprays projecting from the stem. By the aid of 

 Persoon I identifled this as a plant of Spain, and especially of 

 this part of it. Asparagus horridus. It is the same which I 

 afterwards found, in my way back, at Tarragona. 



The only other noticeable plant tvhich I saw at Valencia was 

 the stately Asphodelus ramosiis, of which I had seen at Tarra- 

 gona a few roots (as I believed) still far from flowering. It 

 does not seem to be a common plant in these parts of Spain, 

 though widely spread in the Mediterranean region. It abounds 

 in many parts of Langucdoc and Provence, near Rome and in 

 some other parts of Italy ; and in Sicily it, together with the 

 Palmetto, covers nearly all the uncultivated ground. I am 

 afraid, indeed, that the meadows, celebrated by poets, from which 

 Proserpine was carried ofl" while gathering flowers with her 

 attendant maidens, were in truth no other than these Asphodel 

 wastes, which, notwithstanding the beauty of the plant, are by 

 no means so pleasing to the eye or the mind as a real English or 

 mountain meadow. This Asphodel is now called by French 

 botanists A. microcarpus. It is confined to the hotter districts 

 of Europe. There is another species or race, called by them A. 

 subaipinus, which covers in large masses the middle regions of 

 some of the higher Pyrenees, and it is said also of the Alps. 

 On a superficial view this is not distinguishaljle from the former. 

 A. albus is also a French species, and there is another allied to 



