833 



was unproductive ; and then descended towards the river. The 

 lower strata seem here to be chalky, and the Orchideae were abun- 

 dant, chiefly about and beyond a little pool, where a by-road tmuis up 

 from the river towards Samois. They were Epipactis rubra in great 

 beauty, E. atropurpurea, Ophrys arachnites, O. apifera, Listera ovata, 

 Aceras anthropophora and Orchis pyramidalis, all growing together 

 and abundant. On a little hill descending from this pool, the banks 

 were covered with Equisetum hyemale. 



I did not find Euphorbia Lathyris, which is said to grow at Valvins. 

 In my way back I met with Althaea hirsuta. Afterwards I climbed 

 up a sandy ridge, the point de vue of Queen Amelia, and a very beau- 

 tiful one it is, commanding a variety of rock and wood, of barren 

 slopes and of the cultivated valley beneath. The other more common 

 plants of the walk were : — 



Monotropa Hypopitys Vicia lutea Sedura Cepaea 



Poa compressa Ajuga Chamaepitys Ornithogaluni pyrenaicum 



Festuca uniglumis Crepis tectorum Campanula persicifolia 



Rubus affinis Astragalus glycyphyllos Orobanche epithymuni 



Liuurn tenuifulium Gentiana cruciata, not in fl. Plantago arenaria 



These were the three walks at Fontainebleau recommended by M. 

 de Jussieu, except that, omitting my earlier aberrations, T ought to 

 have returned, after finding the Orchises, to the new bridge at La 

 Madelaine, and crossed the Seine to the Bois de Champagne. There 

 is, however, a fourth walk to be made, which is very interesting: this 

 is to Franchard, which I visited on the 22nd. The multitude of rocks 

 in this direction is very great, and they are so like each other, and so 

 broken and irregular, that it is a perfect labyrinth, from which it is dif- 

 ficult for a person unacquainted with the forest to extricate himself. 

 The directions, which are very numerous, often serve to increase the 

 perplexity. One finds, on coming into a beaten track, a post, on 

 which is written, "Route allant a Fontainebleau," but nothing to mark 

 in which direction Fontainebleau lies. It is true that the post, in 

 such a case, is usually put on that side of the cross road which is 

 nearest the place specified, but it is not always so, and a person trust- 

 ing to this rule might be sometimes wofully deceived. Then we have 

 " Route allant a la Route rond," which " route rond " forms a circle 

 of considerable diameter, and one part might lie just in our way, and 

 another very much out of it. The best Botany on the road is, in 

 general, not among the rocks, but on some dry and barren banks where 

 the sandstone seems to be capped with a calcareous deposit. Here 

 grow : — 



4b 



