- 9 - Excursion to Mtirala Mountain Let us make a short trip to the neighbouring environs and to Mt. Mtirala to see a plot of the Colchic forest that has been well preserved. The Mtirala ("Crying") has been so-named because its summit is almost always covered with clouds. According to the data of the meteorological station, situated at an elevation of 1150 to 1200m, precipitation varies from 3986 to 4500 mm here, an amount similar to that in damp tropical forests. Near the foot of the mountain there are red soils that support plantations of sub- tropical plants, mainly tea; a little higher, in the belt of beech forest, the red soils are replaced by brown forest soils that extend up to the very summit of the mountain. The road to the Mtirala follows gently sloping spurs, along the narrow gorge of the Korolitskali River (near the village of Chaysubani). Here there are remnants of mixed broad-leaved forest composed of Castanea sativa, Alnus barbata, isolated trees of Ul- mus elliptica, Tilia caucasica, Diospyros lotus, Laurocerasus of- ficinalis, and other species in common with the remnant forest vegetation in the Botanical Garden. Along the road, up to the elevation of 500 m, there is the above-described shrubby undergrowth as well as a road-side flora consisting of local and foreign species. A dense tangle of Pteri- dium tauricum, Phytolacca americana, Erigeron sp., and Spiraea japonica can be seen, interlaced here and there with the semi-ar- boreal, very difficult to control, Smilax excelsa. After we leave the populated area, we come to a dense forest with a thick over-storey and even thicker evergreen undergrowth. The overstorey is a mixture of several dominant trees - Fagus, Alnus and Castanea. The understorey is composed of deciduous and evergreen shrub species. The deciduous species form a tall closed stand of stately trees whose age is 250 or 300 years. A subtropical appearance in the forest is conveyed by an exuberant growth of lichen garlands trailing from the branches, and by a diversity of mushrooms on a dead, rotting trunks. The small number of epiphytes is striking; for their number in this forest does not exceed that in the Botanical Garden; but only Po-