74 



dred and thirty-five toises above the level of the 

 ocean, which is almost the height of Popayan ; 

 but the mean temperature of this place is pro- 

 bably only 17° or 18°*. The road over these 

 mountains is much frequented; we met at 

 every step long files of mules and oxen ; it is 

 the great road leading from the capital to Vic- 

 toria, and the valleys of Aragua. The road is 

 cut out of a talcose gneiss *j~ in a state of de- 

 nan thera caracasana, eupatorium amydaliuum, elytraria fas- 

 ciculata, salvia Jimbriata, angelonia salicaria, heliotropiuni 

 strictum, convolv ulus batatilla, rubus jamaicensis, datura arbo- 

 rea, dalea enneaphylla, buchnera rosea, salix humboldtiana 

 Willd., theophrasta longifolia, tonrnefortia caracasana, inga 

 cinerea, i. ligustrina, i. sapindioides, i. fastuosa, schwenkia 

 patens, erythrina mitis. The most agreeable places for her- 

 borizations near Caraccas are the ravines of Tacagua, Tipe, 

 Cotecita, Catoohe, Anauco, and Chacaito. (With respect to 

 plants that grow between the heights of 800 and 1300 toises 

 on the Silla, in the region of the befarias, the trixis nerei- 

 folia, and the myrica caracasana, see above, chap, xiii, vol. 

 iii, p. 494 — 505.) In the four works of descriptive botany, 

 which we have published, the Plantes Equinoxiales, the Mono- 

 graphic des Bhexia, that of the Melastomes, and the Nova 

 Genera, the plants of the different parts of Spanish America 

 are collected and arranged in natural families; in this 

 Personal Narrative I endeavour to bring together what be- 

 longs to the same place, not in order to give a Flora, but to 

 enable the botanical reader to form an idea of the physiog- 

 nomy of the country, and the aspect of vegetation. 

 * From 13'6° to 14*4° Reaumur. 



f The direction of the strata of gneiss varies ; it is either 

 hor, 3*4, dipping to the N. W. or hor. 82, dipping to the 



S. E. 



