1862.] BOTANY or SPAIN. 41 



reaches northward as far as Normandy; both the Thymes, T. 

 vulgaris and Serpyllwn ; and in great abundance a common 

 Sideritis, S. scordioides. Globidaria nana, as elsewhere in the 

 Pyrenees, coated the rocks with its small leaves, its numerous 

 heads of flowers, and its clumsy w^oody stems, so creeping that they 

 seem adherent to the soil. An Armeria, seemingly A. plantayi- 

 nea, represented the Order Plumbag'mea ; and Plantago was re- 

 presented by P. media, and the mountain species, P. carinata. 



OfApefala, the most worthy of notice was Aristolochia Pisto- 

 lochia, with its almost black flowers, one of the smallest species 

 of this curious genus. The Polygonea were Polygonum Bistorta, 

 as abundant as it usually is in moist mountain meadows, Rumex 

 acetosa, and P. scutatus, with its singular leaves, a plant as com- 

 mon in the vineyards near Cobleutz as in the south of Europe. 

 The Euphorbia were E. serrata, Cijparissius, Characias, the po- 

 lished E. nicaensis, and another, to me unknown. To these may 

 be added the shrubs or trees, Quercus cocci/era, Buxus sempervi- 

 rens, and Celtis australis. 



The Monocotyledonece were finer than I expected, and finer 

 than I found in my next day of botanizing. There were Orchis 

 mascida, O. galeata (by some reduced to militaris, but the form 

 of the flower, admirably figured by Woods, is decidedly different), 

 Aceras anthropophora, which recalled pleasing memories of the 

 Surrey hills ; Narcissus poeticus, as already mentioned ; one of 

 the plants common to alpine and maritime situations. Allium 

 Schoenoprasum (but I am not sure this plant does not belong to 

 the next day's district) ; the Grasses, Bromus tectorum, Briza 

 media, jEgilops ovata, Melica Magnolii; and the Ferns, Asple- 

 nium Trichomanes and Adiantum Capillus-Veneris. 



Urgel, properly La Sen (or Seo) de Urgel, better known lo- 

 cally as La Sen simply {the See, its bishop having for many cen- 

 turies been one of the chief princes of the country), is the most 

 characteristic, old-looking, and picturesque of small Spanish 

 towns. We entered it after nightfall. I shall never forget the 

 moonlight look of its dark streets, its jalousies and overhanging 

 balconies. The situation is one of the most glorious in the whole 

 Pyrenees. It lies far down in the long valley which we had been 

 a day and a lialf in descending ; but the valley does not open to 

 the plain ; it is crossed, and, in appearance, closed a little below 

 the town, by a low range, with a striking peaked outline, which 



N.S. VOL. VI. G 



