356 BOTANY OF SPAIN. [December, 



tmiate as to detect a species previously unknown in Belgium, 

 though it hmd been found growing abundantly on the rocks near 

 Givel, on the French frontier. 



What strange freaks plants play with the theories of botanical 

 geographers ! And what a Puck-like spirit of mischief seems to 

 direct them in thus overleaping the lines and boundaries set to 

 their wanderings, by these savans I Last year it was the ap- 

 pearance of Ai'enaria balearica in Britain, that gave rise to so 

 much angry discussion ; and lo ! here is another South-European 

 species, which has skipped from Dauphine to the valley of the 

 Meuse, between the fiftieth and fifty-first degrees of north latitude. 

 What a theme for learned speculation ! 



Having settled the question of the Artemisia, we had next to 

 ascertain the nature of the hard bodies taken from the pond. 

 They proved to be gems (what are called in German Knospen- 

 keime) , a secondary mode of propagation of Potamogeton crispus. 

 I found them figured in Reichenbach's ' Deutschlands Flora,' 

 (the half-coloured edition) vol. v. f. 30, as P. crispus, var. gem- 

 mifer. They are also figured and described by Treviranus, in a 

 number of the ' Botanische Zeitung' for 1857. Thinking they 

 may be new to other readers of the * Phytologist,' as^they were 

 to me, I have translated and subjoin his note and a copy of his 

 drawini?. 



H. C. 



Motix-siir-Ueuse, October ISlh, 1861. 



BOTANY OF SPAIN. 



A feio Days' Botanizing in the North-Eastern Provinces of 

 Spain, in April and May, 1860. 



No. IV. MONSERUAT. 



The celebrated mountain INIonserrat (which there is no good 

 reason for writing with the French orthography, Montserrat), 

 consists of a long range of many summits, which from their peak- 

 like and serrated appearance, when seen from far off, might be 

 supposed to be of slate. The greater is the surprise of the tra- 

 veller when he finds on approach, that the whole mountain is 

 composed of pudding-stone, and that the turrets and pinnacles 

 are not pointed, but rounded. The highest summit is stated to 



