4.66 Botanical Excursion in Lower Styria. 
conducted us over the Carinthian frontier to St. Veith. There, by 
good luck, we met with another clergyman who invited us to sup 
with him on the way back, and treated us as handsomely as the 
gentleman with whom we dined; and so we reached Schénstein 
somewhere about two in the morning. One evil of the warm 
hospitality in the Slavonian provinces is, that the inns are neg- 
lected by respectable people and are consequently dirty and bad. 
To a person travelling through the country for the first time it 
is very pleasant, and he acquires a knowledge of people’s feelings 
and mode of thinking better than in other countries at inns and 
coffee-houses ; but what is gained by the traveller is lost by the 
botanist, and I often regretted, in the magnificent castles where 
I was staying, that I could not be out at five in the morning 
and return at seven in the evening, without waiting for break- 
fast or dinner with the family. 
From Cilli I went to Gonowitz and thence ascended the Bacher, 
but found nothing of interest! Pyrola uniflora, Doronicum 
austriacum, which is pretty common, and plants that are here on 
all alps, Veratrum album, Arnica montana, Cacalia alpina, &e. A 
Tyrolese botanist ascended it in this month, November, and found 
Botrychium matricarioides, the first good plant that was ever 
brought from it. It has been explored by many botanists from 
all sides, but has been universally condemned as the most thank- 
less mountain in all Styria, though from its great breadth and 
perfect wildness much might be expected from it. Mineralogists 
give it a better character. 
Returning to Stattenberg I ascended the Donati, the most — 
striking feature in Lower Styria from its abrupt precipitous face 
towards the north. Though not higher than the Wotsch it pre- 
sents a great many alpine plants, none of which are found on 
the latter: Athamanta cretensis, Draba aizoides, Atragene, Primula 
Auricula, Hieracium flecuosum,W. Kit., Rosa alpina and Saxifraga 
Aizoon. Lower down were Prunella alba, Dianthus plumarius, 
Medicago carstiensis, Quercus Cerris and other things often seen 
elsewhere. The bathing-place, Ashitsch, has rendered the Do- 
nati so famous that I expected more from it. Possibly the visit- 
ors have extirpated some of the plants, to take home as keep- 
sakes. Making another ascent up the Wotsch I found the vege- 
tation quite changed, but nothing that I had not already col- 
lected elsewhere. On my way from Stattenberg to Marburg I 
saw Lathyrus tuberosus and Galega officinalis very abundant, and 
in an excursion from Marburg found Orobanche Picridis, with 
which the excursion closed; and I returned on the 28th of July 
to Gratz, having enriched the Flora Stiriaca with about fifteen 
new species, in addition to the 1900 it already contained. 
