HORTICULTURAL JOURNAL. 67 



passes over a gently undulated, sparsely wooded country. Here by the way 

 side we saw for the first time some beautiful species of Loranthus, parasitical 

 on trees, some bearing scarlet, and others yellow flowers. Many of these 

 Loranthus, and particularly the scarlet flowering kinds, attain to a great 

 size, their heads frequently 4 and 5 feet in diameter, and are equally as 

 graceful in their growth and pretty in their blossoms as many of our finest 

 Fuchsias ; the most of the yellow-flowered ones partake more of the [habit 

 and possess as little beauty as our native Mistletoe. But Ave must not lin- 

 ger on the road, for there are many gems found in the valleys and tops of 

 the mountains to be talked over. 



Just imagine yourself, kind readers — you who are lovers of nature and 

 landscape scenery — standing upon one of the peaks of the Organ mountains, 

 at an elevation of six or seven thousand feet, overlooking the spacious Bay 

 of Rio and its numerous islands, with clusters of ships of almost every na- 

 tion tying at anchor, the largest of them appearing not bigger than the ca- 

 noe of an Indian, while more near on the flat lands surrounding the water, 

 plantations of Cocoanut trees, Plantains, Bananas, Sugar, Coffee and Man- 

 dioca (Jatropha manihot), with Rice fields of a lively green, somewhat re- 

 lieving the eye after passing from the gloomy, deeply-wooded declivities of 

 the mountain sides, and the rugged granite rocks shewing their crests here 

 and there hi^h above the trees. 



On entering the margin of these evergreen virgin forests (mato virgin) we 

 felt quite at a loss to know what plant to collect first, so numerous were the 

 species of the various tribes of Begoniacese, Rubiaceae, Solanese, Apocyna- 

 ceae, Urticacese, &c, &c, which met the eye. Among the genera, Begonia 

 was most conspicuous, containing many species which it would be very de- 

 sirable to have in our greenhouses ; seldom two plants of the same species 

 are found growing side by side — unlike in this particular, in a general sense, 

 the vegetation of northern countries, where species are usually more local 

 and social. These remarks apply exclusively to the distribution of species 

 in this portion of Brazil, for in some districts in the interior plants are found 

 more in groups or masses. Another very striking peculiarity of the trees 

 and shrubs in this region consists in the thinness of their bark, in propor- 

 tion to the size of their trunks, and that the outer rind is not thrown off, as 

 is the case with most trees indigenous to northern countries and New Hol- 

 land. 



£ 



From the circumstance that these Brazilian forests are always dripping 

 with moisture, and the great abundance of decomposed vegetable matter, 

 ferns are very numerous and lovely ; the tree kinds belonging to the genera 

 Alsophila and Cyathea, with trunks 30 or 40 feet high, and tops of grace- 



