S. dependens has a very wide range in the west coast 
of South America, from Valdivia in latitude 40° 8S. to 19° 
S. in Bolivia, where it ascends to 13,000 ft. elevation. — 
It also extends over a great portion of the Argentine — 
Republic, Paraguay and Uruguay. Its northern limit in © 
the east coast of America is the province of Rio Grande ~ 
do Sul, in the extreme south of Brazil. According to © 
the late Dr. Gillies (confirmed by. C. Gay) the Indians ~ 
of the Mendozan Andes distil an intoxicating liquor from 
the fruit. The bark yields a balsam used as a vulnerary, 
and other parts of the plant afford medicines formerly 
much in use in Chili. Its native name is Huingan. 
S. dependens was introduced into the Garden of the 
Royal Horticultural Society before the year 1833, when it 
was figured in the “ Botanical Register”? by Lindley, who 
states that it will not bear the climate of London without 
protection from frost, but would probably succeed i 
crevices of rocks in Devonshire and Cornwall. The 
specimen here figured is from a plant raised at Kew from — 
seeds sent from the Botanical Gardens of Santiago, Chih, 
in 1885 ; and which has proved to be perfectly hardy. It 
flowers in May. 
Descr.—A shrub or small tree, 12-15 ft. high, abun- 
dantly flowering, with rigid branches, spinous at the tips; 
or with more or less drooping branches in favourable 
situations; bark brown. Leaves one-third to nearly one 
inch long, very shortly petioled, oblong or obovate, more — 
or less coriaceous, quite entire or more or less toothed, 
dark green above, pale beneath. Flowers yellow, is ™- 
diam., produced in great numbers of axillary, very shortly 
peduncled racemes, about as long as the leaves; bracts 
minute, ovate, ciliolate, 1-8-fld.; pedicels about one 
twelfth of an inch long, glabrous. Calya minute, 4-lobed 5 
lobes rounded, ciliolate. Petals obovate-spathulate, spread- 
ing. Stamens in the male fl. nearly as long as the petals, 
anthers large ; in the female reduced to minute staminodes. 
Disk urceolate, 8-10 lobed. Ovary glabrous. Drupe 
pisiform.—J, D. H. 
whe Portion of raceme and flowers; 2 and 3, stamens; 4, disk Al 
