510 



Herault I gathered a Statice much like S. oleifolia, but without bar- 

 ren branches ; I do not know if this was the one in question. I was 

 surprised that 1 did not in either place find any of the tribe of S. pu- 

 bescens, which is so plentiful towards Nice, nor S. ferulacea and 

 monopetala, which are so characteristic in the Isle of Ste. Lucia, near 

 Navbonne. I had rather hoped, from my intermediate position, that 

 I should have found both these plants near Cette. The Artemisia of 

 the South of France, whether on the Mediterranean or on the Bay of 

 Biscay, which occupies the place of our maritima, is uniformly the A. 

 gallica ; and on observing the entire want of variations in a plant 

 occurring so extensively, we cannot be surprised that the French have 

 exalted it into the rank of a species. 



From Cette I returned to Montpellier, and walked down to the Port 

 Juvenal, a place where wool from Barbary and the Levant has been of 

 old spread out on its arrival. Several rare plants have, at different 

 times, made their appearance here ; but most of them disappear in a 

 year or two. I was, however, much interested by specimens of Ver- 

 bascum speciosissimum, which I had gathered in the same place more 

 than twenty years ago. 



I took the mail from Montpellier to Toulouse, and the banquette of 

 a diligence (not finding a place in the interior or in the mail) to Pan. 

 There I was laid up for a fortnight, and could do nothing in botany ; 

 but in fact there is at this time of year little to be done. The gravel 

 of the Gave is not very accessible ; nor did it give me as much as I 

 expected. Reseda glauca was the only good plant I there met with. 

 Linaria origanifolia is abundant on the old walls, and Erica vagans 

 everywhere ; but the vegetation in general was much more like that of 

 England than in the places I had lately been visiting. From Pau I 

 went to Bayonne, whence I made an excursion to Biarritz. Digitaria 

 paspaliformis is very abundant in some places near Bayonne. This 

 plant is said to have been transported from America to the banks of 

 the river at Bordeaux ; but, from the manner in which it is found 

 here, I rather suspect it to be one of the plants which, plentiful in 

 America, has a station on this side the water, like Spiranthes cernua 

 and Spartina juncea. Spartina alterniflora seems to be in tolerable 

 abundance ; but its station, overflowed by the tide, is much trodden on 

 by cattle ; and between poaching and eating, it would have been diffi- 

 cult to procure a good specimen. The valley at Bayonne is pleasant^ 

 bounded by a succession of low bluffs, often woody, and sometimes 

 surmounted by pleasant-looking villas. The Pyrenees form a good 

 back-ground, but rather of moderately-elevated hills than of mountains. 



