50 
Sotanical Re^ninisce^ices, 
besides these the Marcetia taxifolia, Dec., ^ covered with pink 
flowers which had chosen the same situation ; a plant with 
which I became acquainted here the first time, and which 
appeared to me in the distance to be an Erica, When we 
had reached the proper summit v/e saw before us expanded 
towards north-west and north-east a table-land, which was 
interrupted by small hills, groups of trees and shrubs until it 
was bounded again by high chains of mountains. 
Over a soft, velvet-like carpet of turf, which was yet damp 
with the dew, a dense group of strange plants attracted mj 
attention. They were of a most singular habit ; the naked 
stems, several feet in circumference, dichotomus, and having 
bare branches, ending in long grass-like broad leaves. They 
were Vellozias, but without fiowers or seeds. Between small 
sandstone rocks these peculiar-formed plants, projecting 
stiffly into the air, gave an uncommon character to the 
surrounding vegetation. The light north wind conveyed to 
us the most beautiful fragrance, and soon our eyes were 
attracted with admiration by other plants — flowerstems which 
reached far above the surrounding shrubs, were adorned with 
many white, violet, and purple flowers. They were groups of 
the charming Sobralia Elisabethae, Schomb., which exceeded all 
its congeners in height. I saw flowerstems five or six feet high, 
with flowers of the size of our lilies. But not alone the 
Sobralias but also the small trees and shrubs were unknown 
to me. I stood before a zone of plants of new and wonderful 
forms. The same astonishment, the same surprise, the same 
sentiment which had mastered my feelings when I set foot 
on the South American soil, rose in my breast, only with 
this difierence that I imagined myself transferred from 
South America into a new world, between the Froteaceae of 
Africa and Australia, the Melaleucas, of East India. The 
coriaceous shining leaves, the twisted branches, the strange 
formation of the flowers, their dazzling colors, everything was 
different in character from the flora of South America I was 
previously acquainted with. I hardly knew where to look 
first, whether towards the wax-like fiowers of the Thibaudia, 
Befaria, and Archytaea, or towards the large camellia-like 
white flowers of a Bonnetia, or on the shrubs of the Melasto-^ 
maSy the Abolboda, Vochysia^ Ternstroemiay Andromeda, Clusia, 
Kielmeyera, covered with thousands of their brilliant flowers, 
or on the quaint flowers of the Sobralias, Cattleyas, Oncidiums, 
OdontoglossumSy which covered the humid sandstone blocks ; 
