250 TIERRA DEL EUECO 



of snow, deep yellowish-green valleys, and arms of the sea inter- 

 secting the land in many directions. The strong wind was 

 piercingly cold, and the atmosphere rather hazy, so that we did 

 not stay long on the top of the mountain. Our descent was not 

 quite so laborious as our ascent ; for the weight of the body 

 forced a passage, and all the slips and falls were in the right 

 direction. 



I have already mentioned the sombre and dull character of 

 the evergreen forests,^ in which two or three species of trees 

 grow, to the exclusion of all others. Above the forest land 

 there are many dwarf alpine plants, which all spring from the 

 mass of peat, and help to compose it : these plants are very 

 remarkable from their close alliance with the species growing 

 on the mountains of Europe, though so many thousand miles 

 distant. The central part of Tierra del Fuego, where the clay- 

 slate formation occurs, is most favourable to the growth of trees ; 

 on the outer coast the poorer granitic soil, and a situation more 

 exposed to the violent winds, do not allow of their attaining 

 any great size. Near Port Famine I have seen more large trees 

 than anywhere else : I measured a Winter's Bark which was 

 four feet six inches in girth, and several of the beech were as 

 much as thirteen feet. Captain King also mentions a beech 

 which was seven feet in diameter seventeen feet above the roots. 



There is one vegetable production deserving notice from 

 its importance as an article of food to the Fuegians. It is a 

 globular, bright yellow fungus, which grows in vast numbers 

 on the beech-trees. When }'oung it is elastic and turgid, with 

 a smooth surface ; but when mature, it shrinks, becomes tougher, 

 and has its entire surface deeply pitted or honeycombed, as 

 represented in the accompanying woodcut. This fungus 

 belongs to a new and curious genus ;- I found a second 



' Captain Fitz Roy inft)rms me that in April (our October) the leaves of those 

 trees which grow near the base of the mountains change colour, but not those on 

 the jnore elevated parts. I remember having read some observations, sliowing that 

 in England the leaves fall earlier in a warm and hne autumn than in a late and 

 cold one. The change in the colour being here retarded in the more elevated, and 

 therefore colder situations, must be owing to the same general law of vegetation. 

 The trees of Tierra del Fuego during no part of the year entirely shed their leaves. 



2 Described from my specimens and notes by the Rev. J. M. Berkeley, in the 

 IJnnean Transactions (vol. xix. p. 37), under the name of Cyttaria Darwinii : the 

 Chilian species is the C. Berteroii. This genus is allied to Bulgaria. 



