CHAPTER VIII. 



The Botanical productions of the hills are of the richest 

 and most varied description, hut they are a field, ia a great 

 degree unexplored. From the peculiar nature of the climate, 

 and their position betwixt a tropical and temperate zone, they 

 partake of the advantages of both ; and plants of the most 

 opposite descriptions, from the luxuriant produce of a rich 

 soil, under the influence of a tropical sun, up to the small 

 Alpine shrub, which niches itself in an angle of the bare rock, 

 all may be found in the compass of a single day's journey. 

 Another difficulty in the way of a collector, whose leisure 

 does not admit of his passing a considerable time on the 

 hills, is, that there are plants coming into flower every month 

 of the year, and it would require the labour of many sea- 

 sons, added to indefatigable industry, to exhaust the Flora. 



In the Appendix wiU be found a catalogue of plants exa- 

 mined by my friend the Reverend Mr. Schmid, extending to 

 upwards of 400 new species. 



The following observations, on the general character of 

 the vegetation, are from the pen of my friend Baron Hiigel, 

 an officer of the Imperial Austrian Army, who has travelled 

 very extensively over all Europe, and great part of Asia, in 

 the pursuit of Botanical knowledge, and who paid the hills a 

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