On the Botany of Tahiti. Ixxiii 
I sat down on a stone and knocked the dirt out of my shoes, just to vex 
him, and in five minutes more was in a place where I knew very well he 
would not dare venture to pursue me. 
The tops of these first ranges of hills are frequently quite bare of 
vegetation, apparently owing to some poisonous ingredient in the soil, which 
is of a bright red colour, like ochre ; when anything does grow on these red 
patches, which are always very much cut up by watercourses, it is the 
Metrosideros villosa, which clings to any small portion of brown soil that may 
have been brought down from a higher level by the rains, and makes a 
miserable sort of living in the midst of desolation. Where the soil is not red 
it is covered, in patches only, with a few dry grasses, particularly a Cenchrus, 
Bidens australis, stunted grasses, and Gleichenia. After passing these barren 
spots I came to a path along the side of a hill, which was more fertile, and 
was covered with other grasses, a pretty Hedysarum with purplish flowers, 
stray Diosmeas and Tamuses, also a large plant which I never saw anywhere 
else, and which appeared to be a Smilax, but it was not in flower. Several 
species of Cucurbitacee and Convolvulacee grow among the grass, and also 
several ferns worth collecting. 
At the bottom of this slope, just where the path entered the bushy fringe 
of the little stream, is a tree of a species of Pittosporum, with insignificant 
greenish flowers, rare in most parts of Tahiti, but not uncommon in Morea ; 
in general appearance, when in fruit, it strongly resembles P. undulatum. 
The path crosses the stream just above a pretty little cascade, overshadowed 
by a clump of bamboos, which grow from near the bottom; on the other 
side, in a sort of niche, is a plant of the féi. There are two little basins of 
rock through which the water passes before it falls, and it is altogether a 
charming place for a pic-nic. I have once or twice made my breakfast there 
before going further; as it is the last water on the road it is necessary to fill 
your bottles here for the day's supply. I intended to have made this spot a 
. sort of wild garden, but had only time to plant one tree, a Biza oullana, which 
some future botanist will perhaps wonder at finding in such a spot. On the 
burau and pirita trees here (//ibiscus tiliaceus and Nauclea nitida) are to be 
seen four or five kinds of orchideous epiphytes (Dendrobium biflorum and 
D. myosurus), the plant called Cyontidium umbellatum, and the two orchids so 
common on the small islands of the group, one with equitant leaves, and the 
other without any leaves at all, but merely a mass of green roots with 
a little scape of almost invisible flowers; I suppose them to be the plants 
called Epidendrum fasciolata and equitans in the catalogues, because formerly 
every plant which was not a Dendrobium was an Epidendrum, and vice versá. 
It is no use to ascend this valley ; I came down it once, and got nothing 
for my trouble but torn clothes. On crossing this little stream I passed under 
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