M. J. C. DE MELLO AND MB. H. SPBTTCE OK PAPATACE^. 13 



■ V 



shrubs that withstand the long drought ; and its naked wand-like 

 stems, 9 feet high, stand up like dead sticks, until the rains 

 (which are not usually more than one or two showers in the 

 whole year ; and there have been years without any rain) revivify 

 them, and they become clad at the growing apex with large 

 deeply-cut leaves, whose veins and long petioles are usually crim- 

 soned over, and from whose axils spring the pretty red flowers, 

 which, in the male plant, are disposed in corymbose panicles. 



To sum up. Scarcely any of the Papayacese can be called " well 

 known." Of very few of them do our herbaria contain speci- 

 mens of more than one sex ; and the inflorescence of even the 



+ 



commonest species has not been traced through its various phases 

 until recently by Senhor Mello, who, it is to hoped, will con- 

 tinue his interesting investigations, not only on the Papaws, but 

 on all the plants Avithin his reach which, from their bulk or their 



perishable nature, cannot be thoroughly studied from dried spe- 

 cimens. 



If, in the preceding remarks, I have presumed to comment on the 

 labours of so emin^it a botanist as M. de Candolle, I will allow him 

 {en revanche) to exclaim against those travellers (myself amongst 

 the number) who have furnished him with such incomplete ma- 

 terials. If he will take the trouble to refer to the accounts of 

 the sufferings of Gonzalo Pizarro and his followers, and those of 

 Madame Godin des Odonnais, in the terrible forest- deserts of 

 the "Land of Cinnamon" {i. e. oi the eastern side of the Equa- 

 torial Andes), he will comprehend how often the traveller, 

 whose energies are severely tasked to barely keep alive, is com- 

 pelled to pass with a sigh the fine things he is unable to gather, 

 much less to preserve, and how the few specimens he does con- 

 trive to dry, amidst perpetual rains and privations of every kind, 

 however incomplete they must often be, are very precious in his 

 eyes, although the botanist who writes about them cannot and 

 ought not to estimate them at more than their real worth. One 

 word more. If the high priests of our science would be content 

 to wait until they obtain complete specimens of the plants they 

 describe, and not be so eager to baptize in their own name every 



discoloured fragment that disfigures their herbaria, their writings 

 would gain in precision and completeness, and ensure their claim 

 to the honour and gratitude of all posterity. 



E. S. 



January 3, 1867. 



