176 NEW AND EAEE PLANTS. ch. vm, 



same natural order was also seen for the first time — Hedy- 

 sarum memhranaGeum, of Cosson. Unlike the other, this 

 is rare, and seems to be limited to the lower zone at the 

 foot of the mountains. We failed to find either flower or 

 fruit, though M. Balansa gathered both, perhaps at a lower 

 level, in May 1867. We also collected fine specimens of 

 two new and very distinct species, first seen on the pre- 

 ceding day — Lotononis maroccana, Ball, and Lotus ma- 

 roccanus. Ball. 



Soon after 8 we got under way, and, after a short ride 

 along the right bank, reached the stream above the part 

 where the water is carried off for irrigation purposes. It 

 was now seen to be a rapid torrent, from twenty to forty 

 yards in width, and nearly two feet deep. For some dis- 

 tance the narrow floor of the valley was nearly flat, and 

 the moist soil was covered with poplars and willows, and a 

 dense undergrowth of grasses and herbaceous flowering 

 plants. Among these were two large Ranunculi, and a 

 gigantic orchid, growing four or five feet high, only a 

 variety of our common Orchis latifolia. 



The vegetation became still more interesting when we 

 left the flat bottom of the valley, and began to ascend on 

 drier ground, between tangled masses of bushes that 

 formed a sort of thick hedge on either side of the track. 

 For the first time in South Marocco, we saw two species of 

 Clematis — G. cirrJiosa and G. Flammula, — along with 

 several other Mediterranean species ; but our minds were 

 especially exercised by a little bush with slender twigs and 

 pinnate leaves, which, in default of flower or fruit, we 

 were at first unable to refer to its place in the natural sys- 

 tem. It turned out to be a curious species of ash, first 

 found in the plateau region of Southern Algeria, appropri- 

 ately named by M. Cosson Fraxinus dimorpha. As long 

 as it remains a bush, with numerous twiggy stems, the 

 leaflets are blunt and rounded ; but when it becomes a 

 shrub, with a stout trunk, it throws out leaves that ap- 

 proach in form those of the flowering ash. We nowhere 



