AUSTRAL-AMERICAN REGIONS. 



87 



was found to occupy a nearly continuous strip of level alluvial soil ; 

 and to consist in great part of upright crowded stems of Apiwn or 

 wild celery, more than two feet high ; the remaining spaces being 

 filled with tall grasses, crowded together, as Alopeciirus Antarcticus ?, 

 a Plileum, Festuca, Agropyrum, and a tall Aira ; with occasionally 

 herbaceous plants intermingled, as a Misandra with long-petioled reni- 

 form leaves, a large abnormal Clirysospleniuin, Galiuin apaTine?, a 

 large Ancistrum with troublesome burs, a tall linear-leaved Cerasfmm, 

 and more rarely a large-flowered Cardamine. 



From the first, the absence of saline and of all genuine maritime 

 plants seemed surprising ; but may in part be accounted for by the 

 predominance of wet weather, the excess of dripping moisture. An 

 Armeria indeed was sometimes present, but the species is probably 

 not exclusively maritime. 



The Upland, chiefly unwooded and subalpine. After crossing the 

 level alluvial strand, the vegetable growth on the commencement of 

 the upland proved yet more crowded, denser than I have witnessed 

 elsewhere : consisting of Juncus ? grandifiorus, various grasses. Per- 

 nettya acuminata or bush-cranberry, with other plants, all a foot or 

 so high, and requiring to be parted with the hands to procure the 

 diminutive subalpine plants beneath. Among them, Nanodea muscosa 

 presented itself as a mere terminal solitary berry on the surface of 

 the soil : and contrary to our experience amid vegetable growth in 

 Brazil and even Patagonia, we soon found ourselves botanizing on the 

 knees. 



Throughout the most of the Upland, the subalpine plants were 

 comparatively free from the overshadowing of grasses and under- 

 shrubs : and it was soon perceived, that local distinctions between wet 

 and dry soil had disappeared ; the densely matted and congested 

 plants, with their interlaced roots more or less fibrous, forming a 

 spongy turf that retained and equalized the moisture. The same wet 

 spongy turf, composed of the same species of plants, covered hill and 

 dale, extending to the very clifis of the coast, and even within the occa- 

 sional reach of surf. Here, however, were a few species of plants inter- 

 mingled, that were not met with inland : as, a one-flowered Plantago 

 having dentate leaves; BaUiarda? moscluda; a Bolax inclining to be- 

 come diffuse; gen. Tanacetoid having a solitary flower ; gen. Saginoid ; 

 and an Ourisia, the only one of these six plants that presented 

 nothing of the congested alpine habit of growth. 



