J3H. I. A CUEIOUS PLANT. 19 



until the coast between Tangier and Ceuta has become more 

 accessible, it will not be safe to assume that it is wanting. 

 Among the many shrubby leguminous plants whose flowers 

 give the prevailing golden tint to the hill sides, two of the 

 Broom tribe {Genista triacmithos and Cytisus triden- 

 tatus), plants of very peculiar aspect and characteristic of 

 this region, attracted our attention. It is impossible to 

 omit another ornament of the hills — a plant rather widely 

 diffused bat nowhere common {Lithoapermum fruti- 

 cosum), whose azure blue flowers formed a charming con- 

 trast with the surrounding masses of golden colour. 



The botanical district to which the northern corner 

 of Marocco belongs has been already called that of the 

 Cistus and Heath, but no single species of those tribes ex- 

 actly conforms to the limits above pointed out. There 

 are, however, several less conspicuous plants whose distri- 

 bution more closely agrees with those limits. The most 

 singular of these is the Drosophyllum lusitanicum, a 

 plant of the sun-dew tribe, whose branched stem bears 

 several large yellow flowers. The numerous slender strap- 

 shaped root-leaves, nearly a foot in length, that ai-e gradu- 

 ally contracted to the thickness of whipcord, are beset 

 with pellucid ruby-tipped glands, and present a peculiarity 

 that appears to be unique in the vegetable kingdom. 

 Any one who has remarked the growth of ferns must have 

 seen that in the young state the leaves are rolled or 

 curled inwards, so that in the process of unfolding the 

 face or upper side of the leaf, which was at first concealed, 

 is gradually opened and turned to the light. A similar 

 process occurs in many other plants ; but in Drosophyllum 

 alone, so far as we know, the young leaf is rolled or 

 curled the reverse way, so that the upper side of the leaf 

 is that turned outwards. It appears to grow in many 

 parts of Southern Portugal ; reappears on the north side 

 of the Straits of Gibraltar near Tarifa and Algeciras, 

 and on the southern side about Cape Spartel and on the 

 hills above Tetuan, where it commands a view of the 



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