ON THE BOTANY AND ENTOMOLOGY OF ICELAND. 209 
in 1824 only stumps remained. Sir G. 8. Mackenzie passed 
in 1810 through a wood of birch trees, 6-10 feet high, by 
the kirk of Bogarfjord. And Henderson, m 1814-15, saw 
numerous forests of birch by the Lagarfljot. Mr. KE. Magnus- 
son informed Professor Babington that the wood at Frujos- 
kadalr has now renewed itself to some extent, and with 
ordinary care may again become a valuable forest. My own 
experience is that the birch and willow bushes in the neigh- 
beurhood of Thingvellir, and during the first part of the ride 
to the Geysir, average from 3 to 4 feet in height, and further 
on, when covering the hill slopes on either side of the 
Bruara river, attain the larger dimensions of 6 feet. From 
what I have read in the works of other travellers, I should 
incline to the belief that the largest woods in the country, 
in extent as well as in the size of their trees, are situate in 
the vicinity of the south coast, though I have not visited 
those spots, not far from where the Markarfljot and other 
rivers form a regular network of estuaries as they discharge 
themselves into the Southern Sea. 
I am also informed that as yet no great number of 
observations are recorded on the height attaimed by Icelandic 
plants. On the top of Heidarfjall, near 2,480 feet high, 
7 species are found. Lieutenant Caroc and Professor John- 
struss find 22 species in the neighbourhood of Asteja, at the 
height of 4,500 feet. At a height of about 1,660 feet in 
Dalfjall, 24 species were found, and only 3 of them were 
other than might be found in Scotland at a similar altitude, 
as Draba nivalis, Betula alpestris, and Salix glauca. 
I here yenture to subjoin an ideal sketch of some of the 
objects of interest to the botanist on his arrival in Iceland. 
On landing at Reykjavik, he will probably find his attention 
first directed $0 the profuse abundance and luxuriant growth 
of Ranunculus acris. The plants of this species (if indeed it 
is R. acris and not glacialis to which I refer) here attain a 
size fully as large as, or larger than it ordinarily reaches in 
England. And in all likelihood, the yellowed appearance of 
the hill-sides in the neighbourhood of the capital owmg to 
this cause will have attracted his notice even previous to his 
leaving the steamer in Reykjavik Bay. Side by side with this 
Ranunculus, on the sloping turf roofs of the dwellings in the 
outskirts, in the public square containing the statue of Thor- 
waldsen, in the carefully manured home fields, or “ tun” as 
they are termed, occurs the no less showy species “ Matri- 
carla inodora” with a flower resembling that of the Ox-eye 
Daisy, and a leaf like that of the fennel, which the Icelanders 
