4.62 Dr. R. C. Alexander’s Account of a Botanical 
Maples, especially a form of Acer campestre with blood-red 
twigs and Samare, and the delicate Spiraea ulmifolia, which I was 
also the first to discover in Styria. Among herbaceous plants, 
Veronica austriaca v. multifida, Centaurea axillaris, Moehringia 
Pone and muscosa, Clematis erecta, Orchis fusca, Vicia tenui- 
folia, Roth., Lactuca perennis, Epipogium aphyllum, Corallorrhiza 
innata, and many already mentioned as occurring on the Wotsch 
and about Pettau. A mere catalogue gives a very inadequate 
idea of the vegetation: it was the proportion in which these 
plants occurred that struck me at every step. Genista scariosa 
covering large banks, Helleborus atrorubens so thick that one 
eould not walk free of it in the woods ; Inula hirta, Hypocheris 
maculata, and other plants that occur about Gratz only locally, 
were here frequent and abundant; different birds and insects ; 
altogether it appeared not so much a part of Styria as an outlier 
of a more southern district. One might perhaps say more cor- 
rectly that it is not, ike Upper Styria, hindered by the vicinity 
of high mountains from developing the climate proper to its 
degree of latitude. During my visit the ladies accompanied me 
over the frontier to Klanyecz, where I spent the day anda night 
in a Franciscan monastery, and made an excursion with one of 
the good monks up the Kaiserberg, but found the same things 
as at Wisell: Cynosurus echinatus, Scandix Pecten, Lath 
Nissolia and Aphaca in the corn-fields; Physalis Alkekengi and 
Aristolochia Clematitis in most of the vineyards. My visit at 
Wisell was at the end of May, just as the weather began at last 
to clear up; and what with the beautiful scenery, delightful 
family, rich flora, and different dress and look of the people, who 
are here pure Croats, I was amply recompensed for almost daily 
soakings that I had got hitherto on my excursions. The draw- 
back in this district is the language. The peasantry speak 
nothing but that of the country, and a different dialect of it in 
every village. It is even difficult in some places to get a guide 
who understands German. On the other hand, a Slavonian guide 
is worth two German ones for hunting out plants and digging 
them up. They have the character of being sly and tricky, but 
I suspect the fault lies oftener with the rascally Beamten, the 
employés of absentee noblemen, using the name of their master 
to oppress and cheat them. The gentlemen who reside on their 
estates universally spoke handsomely of them, and as far as I 
have had the opportunity of judging, they are naturally a much 
more intelligent people and more capable of attachment than the 
Upper Styrians. It may seem out of place to speak of the people 
here, but botanists may be deterred from visiting the most in- 
teresting part of the Austrian dominions by the ridiculous pre- 
judices that are entertained against all kinds of Windisch, Croats, 
