THE VOLCANO IRAZU 1 37 



places great quantities of an exceedingly pretty little lupine 

 (possibly Lupinus aschenhornii) with dark blue flowers and 

 a compound leaf compressed into a rosette of leaflets. The 

 younger leaves are quite reddish and having a velvety "pile" 

 they gather and hold the mist so that they frequently look 

 as if strewn with jewels, a pretty sight when the sun shines 

 on them. The plant is a compact little hemisphere about a 

 foot across, with a single thick taproot bearing numerous 

 nodules. We saw also a few blossoms of a yellow Hyper- 

 icum; it was mentioned by Oersted as resembling H. brathySy 

 having brilliant yellow flowers, and as being often covered 

 with black fungus {Scorias rohinsoni). 



On some of the slopes of the lesser craters, in little pockets 

 more or less protected from the wind, we found veritable 

 flower gardens containing the handsome Bromeliad already 

 mentioned, ferns {Elaphoglossum lingua, E. revolutum, Poly- 

 podium moniliforme) , thickets of Pernettya coriacea with its 

 reddish new leaves and beautifully delicate little pink or 

 white bell-shaped flowers; the yellow S. oerstediafius and 

 Myrtus oerstedii. One such garden we photographed under 

 its canopy of dead branches thickly covered with Usnea and 

 other lichens. In some of these gardens we found a plant, 

 probably a Gaultheria, with stiff leathery leaves and sprays 

 three to four inches long of small waxy coral-red blossoms. 

 There were plants of Gunnera insignis in almost all parts of 

 the crater but, except in the green, vertical-walled valley 

 north of the craters, their huge prickly leaves were brown 

 and shrivelled and we saw none in flower. 



The only human being we saw in the crater was a man 

 who rode up to our tent the first morning to ask If we had 

 seen any cows. We had not, the only traces of cows being 

 old ones, and he rode on past our tent to the east and along 

 a trail that ran up a little gorge between two high parts of 

 the crater-rim, through a green and leafy part of the crater. 



