Читать книгу Lachesis Lapponica - Carl von Linné - Страница 8

GESTRICKLAND.

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The forests became more and more hilly and stony, and abounded with the different species of Winter-green (Pyrolæ).

All along the road the stones were in general of a white and dark-coloured granite.

I noticed great abundance of the Rose Willow (Salix Helix), which had lost all its leaves of the preceding season, except such as composed rosaceous excrescences at the summits of its branches, and which looked like the calyx of the Carthamus (Safflower), only their colour was gone.

Near Gefle stands a Runic monumental stone, rather more legible than usual, and on that account more taken care of.

I noticed a kind of stage to dry corn and pease on, formed of perpendicular posts with transverse beams. It was eight ells in height. Such are used throughout the northern provinces, as Helsingland, Medelpad, Angermanland, and Westbothland.

May 14.

I left Gefle after divine service, having previously obtained a proper passport from the governor of the province and his secretary. I was well received and entertained by the Comptroller of the Customs, Lönbom.

At this town is the last apothecary's shop and the last physician in the province, neither the one nor the other being to be met with in any place further north. The river is navigable through the town. The surrounding country abounds with large red stones.

At the distance of three quarters of a mile stands Hille church. Here begins a chain or ridge of hills extending to the next post-house, three quarters of a mile further, and separating two lakes. On its summit, a quarter of a mile from Gefle, a number of different sepulchral mounds are observable, composed of stones.

The Fir trees here all appeared tall and slender, and were laden with cones of three different stages of growth; some a year old, not larger than large peas, and of a globular figure; others two years old, ovate and pointed; and the remainder ripe, with their scales open and reflexed, having been four years on the tree.

In the marshes on the left the note of the Snipe (Scolopax Gallinago) was heard continually.

At the distance of a quarter of a mile before we come to Troye, on the right, are the mineral springs of Hille.

Troye post-house, which Professor Rudbeck the elder used to call Troy, is surrounded by a smooth hill.

The road from hence lay across a marsh called by the people the walls of Troy, a quarter of a mile in extent, destitute of large trees. The Sweet Gale (Myrica Gale), laden with catkins about its upper branches, was abundant every where, as well as the Dwarf Birch (Betula nana). These form a sort of low alley through which the road leads. This Betula had also catkins upon it, which are sessile and erect, not pendulous as in the Common Birch, about half an inch long and as thick as a goose-quill, situated about the lower part of the branches. The female catkins are more slender than the male, erect, and sessile upon the upper branches. Their scales ovate and almost leafy, green, pointed, three-cleft, with three pair of purplish pistils. Here and there grew the Marsh Violet (Viola palustris), with its pale grey flowers, marked with five or seven black forked lines on the lower lip.

In the forest on the other side of this marsh were many kinds of Club-moss (Lycopodium clavatum, Selago, alpinum, and complanatum).

A quantity of large stones lay by the road side, which the governor of the province had caused to be dug up in order to mend the high-way. They looked like a mass of ruins, and were clothed with Campanula serpyllifolia (the plant afterwards called Linnæa borealis), whose trailing shoots and verdant leaves were interwoven with those of the Ivy (Hedera Helix).

On the right is the lake Hamränge Fjärden, which adds greatly to the beauty of the road.

The morning of this day was bright, but the afternoon was diversified with sunshine and rain, like the preceding. The wind however changed from north to south.

On the mountainous ridge at Hille, above described, I remarked on the ends of the Juniper-branches a kind of bud or excrescence, consisting of three leaves, longer than when in their natural state, and three or four times as broad, which cohered together except at their tips. They enveloped three smaller leaves, of a yellow hue, in the centre of which lodged either a maggot or a whitish chrysalis. (This produces the Tipula Juniperi. See Fauna Suecica 438, and Fl. Suec. 360).

I arrived at Hamränge Post-house during the night.

The people here talked much of an extraordinary kind of tree, growing near the road, which many persons had visited, but none could find out what it was. Some said it was an apple tree which had been cursed by a beggar-woman, who one day having gathered an apple from it, and being on that account seized by the proprietor of the tree, declared that the tree should never bear fruit any more.

May 15.

Next morning I arose with the sun in order to examine this wonderful tree, which was pointed out to me from a distance. It proved nothing more than a common Elm. Hence however we learn that the Elm is not a common tree in this part of the country.

I observed that in these forests plants of the natural family of bicornes (with two-horned antheras) predominated over all others, so that the Heath, Erica, in the woods, and Andromeda5, in the marshes, were more abundant than any thing else. Indeed we meet with few other plants than Vaccinium Myrtillus and Vitis-Idæa, Arbutus Uva-Ursi, Ledum palustre, &c. The same may be said of the upper part of Lapland.

The spiders had now spread their curious mathematical webs over the pales and fences, and they were rendered conspicuous by the moisture with which the fog had besprinkled them.

The Red-wing (Turdus iliacus), the Cuckoo (Cuculus canorus), the Black Grous (Tetrao Tetrix), and the Mountain Finch (Fringilla Montifringilla), with their va rious notes made a concert in the forest, to which the lowing herds of cattle under the shade of the trees formed a base. The weather this morning was delightfully pleasant.

Lichen islandicus grows abundantly in this forest.

After travelling about a mile and half from Hamränge I arrived at the river Tonna, which divides Gestrickland from Helsingland, and empties itself into the bay of Tonna. The abovementioned lake, called by the inhabitants Hamränge Fjärden, extends almost to the sea. I was told it did actually communicate with the ocean. At least there is a ditch in the mountain itself, whether the work of art or nature is uncertain, called the North Sound, hardly wide enough to admit a boat to pass. This is dammed up as soon as the hot weather in summer sets in, to prevent the lake losing too much water by that channel, as the iron from several founderies is conveyed by the navigation through this lake.

5. It is a curious circumstance that Linnæus in his MS. here has the word Daphne; but his remark is not in any respect applicable to that genus, and he evidently can mean only Andromeda polifolia. He had not as yet named either of these genera in print. The origin of Andromeda will be explained hereafter, and the fanciful idea which gave rise to it had not perhaps at this time occurred. He therefore now either intended to call this plant Daphne, or he accidentally wrote one name by mistake for the other, having both in his mind.