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
Andromeda[5], 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.