10'2 NATUKAL HISTORY OF 



was the Adesmia horonioides, belonging to tlie order Legumi- 

 nosse, with stems about eighteen inches high, pinnate leaves, 

 and bright yellow flowers, minutely streaked with brown in 

 the heart. The whole surface of the plant, with the excep- 

 tion of the petals, was covered with large glands, from which 

 a viscid substance, with a very aromatic balsamic odour, 

 exuded. The other plant, also highly viscid and aromatic, 

 was a shrubby composite, from one to three feet high, with 

 the general aspect of a dwarf cypress or lignum vitse, very 

 small scale-like leaves, arranged in fours in an imbricated 

 manner, and small yellow flowers. This was the curious 

 Lepidophyllum ciipressiforme, originally described from speci- 

 mens procured by the distinguished Commerson. It is a 

 remarkable circumstance that two plants, both viscid, and 

 both possessing the same aromatic odour, though belonging 

 to very different orders, should be met with side by side. 

 The Adesmia, though previously collected in Patagonia, does 

 not appear to have been met with by any botanist in the 

 Strait, and the Lepidophyllum, despite its peculiarity, has 

 received a very small measure of notice from the various navi- 

 gators through the Strait, as the only book, not of a strictly 

 scientific nature, in which I have found it mentioned is the 

 " Eelacion del ultimo viage al Estrecho de Magallanes de la 

 Fregata de S. M. Santa Maria de la Cabeza en los anos de 

 1785 y 1786," published at Madrid in 1788. The aromatic 

 odour of the plants is so powerful, that we several times sub- 

 sequently smelt it after a shower of rain, when we were lying 

 at anchor more than half-a-mile from the shore. 



On ascending Direction Hill, a low eminence about 200 

 feet high, I met with two additional plants, one of which was 

 a low, stiff-growing shrub, with lilac flowers, smelling like 

 daphne, and the other a curious little dwarf Calceolaria, the 



