372 PLANTS, SEEDS, AND CURRENTS 



goes on the peak at intervals during the winter and may lie for 

 some time; but it is rarely of any great depth except in the drifts. 

 As a rule it disappears finally during May. Godman (p. 10) speaks 

 of the snowy top of Pico peeping out from the clouds in the last 

 week of April (1865). The statement of Captain Boid (pp. 307-9) 

 that snow lies on the mountain nearly eight months of the year 

 gives an exaggerated notion of the permanency of the snow-cap on 

 Pico. Watson observes that snow may lie under the shade of rocks, 

 and (one may add) in cracks and fissures, until May, but no longer. 

 He states that six weeks before his ascent on July 1 Mr. Dabney 

 had sent a party up to procure snow for a sick friend, " and they 

 got some " (Lond. Journ. Bot., II., 394). 



The lower limit of the snow is generally about 4000 feet; and in 

 this connection it should be noted that on the summits of the other 

 large islands, all of which reach a height of about 3500 feet above 

 the sea, snow rarely lies. It is always winter for the people of the 

 Western Azores, whilst Pico wears its white cap. During the writer's 

 stay on the mountain, from the second week of March to the second 

 week of April 1913, snow fell on at least three occasions, and for 

 most of the time the peak was white with it. Different ascents 

 were made up the snow-covered slopes, and in one of them (April 1) 

 he gained the summit. 



General Account of the Vegetation of the Mountain of 

 Pico. — Coming to a general account of the vegetation of this great 

 volcanic cone, and reversing the customary order of description, we 

 will imagine a botanist who, after alighting on the top of the mountain, 

 descends to the coast. Upon the summit, not only at the borders of 

 the small crater, but also on the sides of its little cone (200 feet in 

 height), he would observe in the crevices of the bare lava surfaces 

 small stunted growths, only a few inches high, of Calluna vulgaris 

 and Menziesia polifolia, with small patches of Thymus serpyllum 

 (var. angustifolius), and here and there a tuft of Agrostis castellana. 

 Proceeding to descend the lava slopes on the south side he would 

 very soon notice specimens of Poly gala vulgaris growing for protection 

 in the patches of Ling (Calluna vulgaris). He quickly reaches the 

 shoulder of the mountain, a more or less level stretch of lava and 

 \Mapilli," 6500 to 7000 feet above the sea, where the Ling and the 

 Thyme grow in dense mat-like beds, almost carpeting the surface 

 in places, the first named only a few inches high and scarcely higher 

 than the Thyme beds. In the middle of July the Ling shows only 

 the evidence of the last season's flowering and fruiting, whilst the 

 Thyme beds present a mass of bloom. It is on this shoulder of the 

 mountain that St. Dabeoc's Heath (Menziesia polifolia) is most 

 abundant, and flowers copiously in July. 



[The above description applies to the plants of the summit as 

 observed by the writer in the middle of July. When he ascended 

 to the top on April 1 of the previous year, the peak was largely covered 

 with snow ; but the beds of Ling and Thyme were easily recognised, 

 the former plant displaying the bleached sepals of the last season's 

 flowering and the latter retaining in abundance the empty fruiting 

 calices.] 



