“These islands… have a sloping uniform outline, excepting where broken by sundry paps & hillocks. The whole is black Lava, completely covered by small leafless brushwood & low trees…the stunted trees show little signs of life…The plants also smell unpleasantly.”
September 16th 1835
“When on shore I proceeded to botanise & obtained 10 different flowers; but such insignificant, ugly little flowers, as would better become an Arctic, than a Tropical country.”
September 17th 1835
“Upon first arriving I described the land as covered with leafless brushwood; & such certainly is the appearance. I believe... every plant or tree is now both in flower & its leaf. But the most prevalent…are ornamented with but very few & these of a brown color.”
September 20th 1835
Charles Darwin The Journal of a Voyage in H.M.S. Beagle
