Page:Voyage in search of La Perouse, volume 2 (Stockdale).djvu/267

] but her fears subsided as soon as she was put in possession of the instrument.

The inhabitants of these mountains appeared to us to live in the greatest wretchedness. They were all extremely meagre. They sleep in the open air without being tormented by the musquitoes; for these insects are driven from the high grounds by the E.S.E. winds, which blow here almost incessantly. The same winds are so prejudicial to vegetation, that trees which below grow to a great height, here wear the appearance of shrubs. Melaleuca latifolia, for example, is scarcely fourteen inches high, whereas on the hills it attains the height of twenty-seven or thirty feet. But still there are vegetables peculiar to the summits of those mountains, which appear to agree perfectly well with the current of air to which they are thus exposed. I shall give a description of one of the most remarkable. It forms a new genus, which I distinguish by the name of dracophyllum.

The calix is composed of six small oval leaves, pointed towards the end.

The corolla is in one piece, and divided slightly on the border into six equal parts. It is surrounded with six small scales at the lower end.

The stamina, to the number of six, are attached