326 NATURAL HISTORY OF 



but there I did not ascend to any considerable height. The 

 male amenta are of a fine purplish plum-colour when fresh. 

 A third novelty was the Mitraria coccinea, a shrub with a 

 scandent habit, common in Chiloe and the Chonos Archipelago, 

 but, I believe, not previously found south of the Gulf of 

 Pefias. With its dark green, glossy, ovate-acute leaves, and 

 scarlet tubular flowers, it presented a very beautiful appear- 

 ance. Fuchsias and Despontaineas were also very plentiful, 

 their bright-coloured blossoms illuminating the edge of the 

 woods ; and a variety of other plants were met with, one 

 beautiful little moss, the Hypopterygium Thouini, specially 

 exciting our admiration from the resemblance it bore to a 

 miniature palm in its habit of growth — the branches, clothed 

 with minute leaves of a most lovely green, spreading at right 

 angles from a stem one to two inches high. 



When the sight-party had accomplished their object, we 

 weighed, and passed through the English Narrows at four p.m., 

 anchoring in Halt Bay, a narrow cove surrounded by high 

 steep hills, thickly covered with the usual vegetation. Imme- 

 diately after a small party of us borrowed the ship's dingy, 

 and set out on a cruise in the neighbourhood, landing on 

 various islands and points of land. It was a perfectly still 

 afternoon, and it has seldom been my lot to witness any scene 

 more serenely beautiful than was afforded by the wooded hills 

 bathed in sunlight, and the placid surface of the water, which 

 reflected the blue sky with its delicate clouds, and the trees 

 growing at its margin. The vegetation, we found, was very 

 similar to that of Eden Harbour, being chiefly composed of 

 Winter's-bark, evergreen beech, Libocedrus, and Metrosideros 

 (which last is one of the few trees that, as a rule, has the 

 bark free from parasitic Cryptogamia), together with fine 

 specimens of Podocarpus nuhigenus. A low tree, not observed 



