192 Botanical Notices from Spain. 
I noticed some gigantic shrubs of Kentrophyllum arborescens with 
stems as thick as an arm, but already completely dried up. It was 
here that the Andalusian robbers paid me a visit; but fortunately I 
escaped them by the speed of my horse. The very friendly town of 
Motril lies at the foot of a limestone chain of hills planted with vines, 
which surrounds the basis of the Sierra de Lujar, and at the com- 
mencement of a wide fruitful plain, quite covered with the most 
luxuriant fields of cotton, sugar-cane, batates and maize. The coast 
is quite flat and very sandy ; Pancratium maritimum, L., blossomed 
in parts in company with a Salsola, Kakile maritima, L., and Euphor- 
bia Paralias, L. ‘The last had past flowering, whilst on the banks 
of the ditches of the above-mentioned plains and on grassy places 
Panicum arenarium, Brot., Xanthium Strumarium, L., and Ricinus 
communis, L., and in the cotton plantations Datura Stramonium, L., 
are not rare. 
At the end of September I returned to Granada, and in the begin- 
ning of October I made the last excursion, of four days, in the Sierra 
Nevada, from whence I brought away little more than seed. The 
fresh-fallen snow which already covered the mountain down to the 
lower alpine region, prevented me from visiting the snow region, as 
I had intended. A subsequent excursion to the neighbouring Sierra 
of Alcafar yielded little beside a small form of Merendera Bulboco- 
dium, Crocus nudiflorus, Sm., and Satureja cuneifolia, Ten. The 
summer months are not the most favourable months of the year for 
botanizing in Andalusia, even in the mountains, as I have found by 
experience ; but much the best time is the spring, from March to May, 
and June and July for the mountains. On the arid hills around 
Granada, the Artemisia Barrelieri, Boiss., which is here very frequent, 
begins to flower in the end of October; and about the same time I 
found on moist shady places in the valley of the Darro the beau- 
tiful Sternbergia lutea, Ker. (Amaryllis lutea, L.), which had not 
hitherto been found in the kingdom of Granada. In the second half 
of October it rained almost incessantly, which prevented my making 
any distant excursions, but favoured the development of the Cryp- 
togamous plants; so that I have obtained a tolerable harvest of 
lichens and liverworts during the latter part of my stay in Granada : 
of the last species, besides several forms of the Pellia epiphylla, 1 
found especially Marchantia paleacea, Bertol., everywhere in moist 
shady places, common on walls and on stony sites and with spore- 
bearers ; on moist masses of rock I also gathered Targionia and Lunu- 
laria vulgaris, Mich., both very beautiful and im rich fructification. 
