44 EARE PLANTS. ch. ii. 



species of Britain and Middle Europe, not one had been 

 seen, unless we count the ubiquitous white-flowered species 

 of our ditches, R. aquatilis. 



From the time we first got a clear view of our moun- 

 tain we had fixed on a range of beetling crags, not far 

 below the summit, which promised to afford an excellent 

 habitat for rare plants. The promise was kept, for we had 

 scarcely approached their base when with joyful cries we 

 saluted one of the chief prizes of our excursion. From 

 clefts on the face of the rock hung great leafy tufts, quite 

 a yard in diameter, supported on stems as thick as a man's 

 arm. The flowering branches produced an abundance of 

 yellow flowers, then just expanding and only partly 

 opened. "We should have set it down as a new and very 

 luxuriant species of wild cabbage, but that we happened 

 to know that the fruit is entirely different, so much so as 

 to constitute a very distinct genus of Gruciferce. Mr. 

 Webb, who probably gathered the plant at this very spot, 

 described and figured it, in the ' Annales des Sciences 

 Naturelles,' under the name Hemicrambe fruticulosa ; 

 but the original specimen seems to have been lost or mis- 

 laid, and no one had since laid eyes upon the living plant. 

 The same rocks produced abundantly the beautiful Iberis 

 gibraltarica, besides many fine plants not yet in flower, 

 amongst which we recognised the rare Spanish centaurea, 

 C. Clementei. 



As seen from Tetuan, the ridge above the rocks ap- 

 peared to lead very directly to the not distant summit of 

 the mountain ; but when, after a short scramble, we had 

 set foot upon it, we clearly saw our mistake. At about a 

 mile and a half from where we stood, and separated from 

 us by a rather profound depression, was another ridge, some 

 three or four hundred feet higher, which might or might 

 not be surpassed by more distant prominences in the same 

 range. It would have been easy to reach the farther 

 summits, but we thought our time better spent in carefully 

 examining the part of the mountain within our reach. 



