Captain Fitz Roy informs me that in April (our October) the leaves of those trees which grow near the base of the mountains change colour, but not those on the more elevated parts.

I remember having read some observations, showing that in England the leaves fall earlier in a warm and fine autumn than in a late and cold one.

The change in the colour being here retarded in the more elevated, and therefore colder situations, must be owing to the same general law of vegetation.
The trees of Tierra del Fuego during no part of the year entirely shed their leaves.) Above the forest land there are many dwarf alpine plants, which all spring from the mass of peat, and help to compose it: these plants are very remarkable from their close alliance with the species growing on the mountains of Europe, though so many thousand miles distant.

The central part of Tierra del Fuego, where the clay-slate formation occurs, is most favourable to the growth of trees; on the outer coast the poorer granitic soil, and a situation more exposed to the violent winds, do not allow of their attaining any great size.

Near Port Famine I have seen more large trees than anywhere else: I measured a Winter's Bark which was four feet six inches in girth, and several of the beech were as much as thirteen feet.