829 



I left the high road on the right, and after crossing some corn-fields 

 and a small wood, followed the direction of a sharp brow in the forest 

 where the sandstone is much quarried, to the Belle Croix, sometimes 

 dipping into the valley beneath, to see if any plants were to be found 

 differing from those above. The crest is rocky, the valley, or at least 

 the lower part of the slope, is of loose sand, but the best Botany is 

 on the crest. The position of some of the plants the most peculiar to 

 Fontainebleau, is very curious. The forest exhibits a remarkable de- 

 velopment of a tertiary sandstone, of which the harder parts form a 

 rocky crest to the hills. On the top of these rocks are hollows often 

 containing water. These pools do not perhaps occupy a fourth part 

 of the surface which drains into them, but it is a surface of rock either 

 naked, or very slightly covered with a dark heathy soil, and there is 

 no drainage from the general surface of the hill. I think the best pools, 

 some of them perhaps hardly a yard square, are where the supplying 

 surface has not sufficient soil to support anything but a few mosses 

 and lichens, or where a gi'eat part of it is naked. It will easily be 

 conceived that in such circumstances the water, in fine weather, be- 

 comes very warm. In summer a great deal of this dries up, but there 

 still remain deep hollows, whose area, instead of occupying a fourth, 

 is reduced to a twentieth of the receiving surface, and here the plants 

 find a refuge. In these little pools we find great abundance of Bul- 

 liarda Vaillantii and Ranunculus nodiflorus, two plants which are 

 hardly found, or are extremely rare elsewhere. Delphinium Consoli- 

 da, which is common in the corn through great part of France, was 

 coming into flower, and Medicago apiculata had sufficiently formed 

 its very characteristic legumes. Veronica spicata begins to exhibit 

 its spikes ; V. verna is pretty well over. Festuca uniglumis is abun- 

 dant in the loose sandy parts, Cynanchum Vincetoxicum everywhere; 

 and so is Asperula tinctoria in this part of the forest, although it is a 

 plant generally rare. Fedia carinata and olitoria have made way for 

 F. auricula, which is now the predominant species. The other plants 

 were : — 



Trifolium rubens Phalangium ramosum Galium Iseve 



Genista sagiltalis [there Sedum villosum Inula hirta 



Orchis ustulata, here and Tillfea niuscosa Gypsophila muralis 



Phyteuma orbiculare Helianthemum umhellatum Lychnis viscaria 



Campanula persicifolia out of flower Phalangium Liliago 



Geranium sanguineum Orohus niger Ranunculus Chsrophyllus 



Glohularia vulgaris Vicia lutea Thesium intermedium ? 



Epipactis Nidus-avis Trifolium striotum Dianthus carthusianorum 



In the latter part of ray walk I met with Sesleria carulea. — 



