AUSTRAL-AMERICAN 



REGIONS. 



109 



Violas. On the naked plateau above, whole tracts were rendered yel- 

 low by a low-growing, one-flowered Oxcdis, leafless, at least at this 

 season ; while here and there a Pandaniform tuft of the radical leaves 



M-yngium panicidatu7n ? took the place of isolated shrubs. 



Returning lower down, the vegetable growth in the ravines between 

 the ridges, proved fresher and more vigorous ; the above-mentioned 

 shrubs being intermingled in thickets with others not seen on the 

 barren ground above : as several MyrtacecB; various species of Escal- 

 lonia ; a smooth Ribes ; the Dry mis or Chilian magnolia; Fuchsia 

 macwstemma ; and even a woody vine, a five-leaved Cissus. Where 

 there was running water with shaded banks, at the bottom of the 

 more deep and narrow ravines, Ferns made their appearance, inter- 

 mingled here and there among the shrubs : also, various freshly-ver- 

 dant herbaceous plants ; as two or three CalceoIa7ias, Eupatorium 

 gleclionophyJlum, a Galmm, a Lathy rus, and others. 



In the general absence of marshy ground, some wet springy spots 

 were met with, containing small herbaceous plants; as two species of 

 Hydrocotyle, Limosella tenuifoUa, a Gratiola-like Mimidus, and a con- 

 gener of the Fuegian AnagaUoid. 



Back of the two sea-beaches, the one six miles North and the other 

 a like distance South of Valparaiso, were shallow pools, filled in great 

 part with a Scirpiis resembling S. lacustris. These marked the ter- 

 mination of a stream of water coming from the Interior, in a wide 

 sandy river-bed ; the exposed portions in both instances bearing scat- 

 tered bushes of a "'chilquilla" or willow-leaved Baccharis, an occasional 

 small tree of a true willow or Salix, and conspicuous clusters of the 

 Chusquea, or dwarf bamboo, fifteen feet or so high, but resembling in 

 outline the gigantic nodding species of Brazil. 



The bordering hills, gently-sloping and of inferior elevation, pre- 

 sented a somewhat Tropical aspect in the presence of a Cestrum, 

 an almost arborescent showy -flowered Cassia, and a tall shrubby 

 Eugenioid?. Other tall shrubs being abundantly intermingled, as 

 Aristotelia and Psoralea glandidosa; also various herbaceous plants, 

 as a tall and branching small-flowered Senecio, an Alonsoa, Argemone 

 grandijiora, and an occasional stock of the coarse Rheum-leaved 

 Gumiera scabra. 



Of other plants, frequent here and generally in the lower environs 

 of Valparaiso, may be mentioned : the Duvaua, rarely twenty feet 

 high, the trunk, in one instance, three feet in diameter; various large 



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