93 



birds and winds waft them continually from the 

 distant forests into the savannahs. 



The climate of these mountains is so mild, 

 that at the farm of Cocollar the cotton and 

 coffee-tree, and even the sugar-cane, are culti- 

 vated with success. Whatever the inhabitants 

 of the coast may allege, hoar frost has never 

 been found in the latitude of 10°, on heights 

 scarcely exceeding those of the Mount D'Or, or 

 the Puy de Dome. The pastures of Tumiriquiri 

 become less rich in proportion to the elevation. 

 Wherever scattered rocks afford shade, lichens 

 and some European mosses are found. The 

 melastoma guacito*, and a shrub, the large and 

 tough leaves of which rustle like parchment 

 when shaken by the winds, rise here and there 

 in the savannah. But the principal ornament 

 of the turf of these mountains is a liliaceous 

 plant with golden flowers, the marica martini- 

 censis. It is generally observed in the province 

 of Cumana, and Caraccas, only at four or five 

 hundred toises of elevation J. The whole rocky 

 mass of the Turimiquiri is composed of an al- 



* Melastoma xanthostachyum, called guacito at Caraccas. 



+ Paliscourea rigida, chaparro bovo. In the savannahs, or 

 llanos, the same Castillian name is given to a tree of the 

 family of the proteaceae. 



% For example, in the Montanna de Avila, in the road 

 from Caraccas to la Guayra, and in the Silla de Caraccas, 

 The seeds of the marica are ripe at the end of December. 



