Page:London Journal of Botany, Volume 2 (1843).djvu/8

 Of maritime plants, I found only a scanty supply, chiefly on the sands about Port Pym. Here I gathered Juncus acutuSy Polygonum maritimum, Salsola Kali, a species of Cakile, and a Convolvulus, much resembling C Soldanella, but with white and larger flowers. On the other side of Horta, I saw Euphorbia Peplis. The rocks of the coast produced another species o( Euphorbia, an Arenaria, and a profusion of Asplenium marinum, which indeed grew all over the is lands. In the vicinity of Horta, the land is almost all under culti- vation, having been converted into gardens, orange orchards, and cultivated fields, which are fenced by stone walls, with very narrow and rugged roads winding between them, also flanked by the monotonous stone walls. Living reeds are almost the only other material used for fences ; and planted in rows, they answer this purpose very well, growing ten feet high and upwards, so as to constitute an excellent protection against the violence of the Atlantic gales, before which their elastic stems bend without breaking. Against the trespasses of man they can be no defence ; but by cutting down some of them to be tied as rails across those which are left growing, a suflBcient fence against cattle may readily be made. There is a constant renovation of these reed hedges from the succession of suckers thrown out by their roots. The field crops consist of maize, wheat, beans, lupines, flax, potatoes, and various gourds. The gardens produce lemons, oranges, grapes, figs, apricots, peaches, and bananas. Straw- berries do not succeed well, and the fruit which they do bear is with difficulty preserved from the innumerable blackbirds. Apples I observed in Pico and Flores, but none in Fayal. Cherries, raspberries, gooseberries, or currants, I saw neither in Fayal nor in any of the other islands. As to ornamental shrubs and flowers, anything that grows in our green-houses might or does grow in the open ground in Fayal ; but the violent sea-breezes would break and destroy most kinds of trees, as they rose above the shelter of the walls, or of those robust evergreens, which are constantly planted in the gardens and orange orchards to protect the less hardy kinds. The