38G BELGIAN BOTANY. [January, 



Having had a slight refreshment at the Hotel St. Denis, where 

 some of our friends had slept the previous night, we directed our 

 steps to the Pavilion des Dunes, the place fixed for our departure. 

 Many amongst us had never seen the sea, and the scene that it 

 presented that day, seen from the pier, must have heen more 

 pleasing than striking. As far as the eye could reach, the ocean 

 was smooth as a mirror; the gentle rippling of the Avaves 

 scarcely disturbed the uniformity of the glass surface. Perhaps, 

 thought I, while looking west, I am about the explore the Bel- 

 gian coast, whilst several of my countrymen are walking along 

 that of England, botanizing like myself. I was engaged in this 

 reverie, when I found that the company was being divided into 

 bands, so as to explore all the points of the dunes at once, in 

 walking along the coast in three parallel lines. The weather 

 calm^ coupled with a splendid sun, predicted a beautiful mild 

 afternoon, so we set out as nimble and as cheerful as a party of 

 schoolboys. For the same reason that the sea was quite a fi'esh 

 thing to several of us, so were the dunes a terra incognita (unex- 

 plored tract) for the majority. The flora was a novelty; those plants 

 which, by their gigantic rhizomes, fix the moving and capricious 

 sands, attracted a large amount of our admiration. First of all 

 we paid our attentions to those enormous tufts of Ammopkila 

 arenaria, with its rush-like leaves, fiom the centre of which rise 

 very large spikes loaded with tremulous stamens ; then the nu- 

 merous colonies of Elynius arenarius and Triticum junceum, 

 mingled with a thousand varieties of Triticum repeals, a type so 

 polymorphous, that, according to certain authors, it comprehends 

 several distinct species, few of which are as yet known or brought 

 to light. 



Having pretty Avell examined the tops of those dunes and their 

 maritime slope, we made for the other side, to look at the produce 

 of the meadows which lay at their foot, for in the former situation 

 the flora is always very monotonous, and for the most part poor. 

 The following common species are only to be met with, mixed 

 with those already named, on the sea side of these hills : — Siietie 

 conica, Viola sabulosa, Caki/e maritima, Helianthemum vulgare, 

 Anthyllis niarithna, JLryngium niaritimum, Jasione montana, 

 HippopJiae rhamnoides, Salix repens, Carex arenaria, Festuca 

 arenaria, Osbeck {F. sabuiicola, L. Duf.), Kceleria alb escens, DC, 

 Pkleum arenariiim. 



