THE STRAIT OF MAGELLAN. 499 



was growing luxuriantly. On a tract of sandy soil two other 

 species of the same order, the Goniophlehium neriifolium and 

 the Asplenium suspensum, the latter of which also occurs in 

 the forks of trees, were observed ; while on the white sand 

 above high-water mark, the trailing stems of a Leguminous 

 plant, with pretty purple flowers, extended for fathoms. The 

 5th was devoted to an ascent of the Corcovado, and the 

 wonderful view from the top was again duly admired. 

 Several fine tree-ferns were met with on the way, and I was 

 much struck with the extraordinary amount of variation dis- 

 played in the pinnules of a single frond of a species whose 

 name I have not ascertained, but which was probably an 

 Alsopliila. I preserved specimens from various parts of the 

 frond, and I figure a couple of them, as I think they furnish 

 a striking warning to those palaeontologists who do not possess 

 a very intimate acquaintance with botany, of the danger of 

 error to which they are liable in describing detached fossil 

 leaflets as distinct species. A very common but handsome 

 fern, at a certain height up the mountain, was the Hemidictyum 

 marginatum, the simply pinnate fronds of which sometimes 

 exceed ten feet in length. As I have earlier stated in the 

 course of this narrative, few things in Brazil made a more 

 powerful impression on my mind than the wonderful diversity 

 of form and habit presented by this class of plants. It would 

 be asking too much of those who have had the patience to 

 follow this chronicle thus far, were I to pass minutely in 

 review the various species commonly to be met with in the 

 neighbourhood of Rio ; but it may tend to give some idea of 

 their wonderful profusion, when I state that on a single day's 

 ramble a sedulous collector may obtain a greater number of 

 species than are to be met with in the whole of Great Britain. 



