the plant is covered with a foft pubefcence, more harfh on 
the calyx than elfewhere. The fruit is eatable, agreeably acid — 
and {weet, and with a little ufe very palatable ; has a fragrant — 
odour, fomething like a mixture of apple and melon. : 
‘This plant is a native of Peru and Chili, but is cultivated — 
at the Cape of Good Hope, in fome parts of the Eaft-Indies, 
and more efpecially at the Englifh fettlement of New South-— 
Wales, at which latter place it is known by the name of the — 
Cape Goofeberry, andis the chief fruit the colonifts at prefent — 
poffefs: is eaten raw, or made into pies, puddings, or 
preferves. =e 4 
It does not appear to be unwholefome, though the Botanift, — 
who fees the near natural affinity it bears to the Deadly 
Nightfhade, can hardly diveft himfelf of the averfion arifing 
from fuch an affociation. Domsty, indeed, in a memoir he — 
wrote upon the fubjeé, attributes the origin of a cruel dif-_ 
order that prevails in Peru, to the too great ufe made of © 
Capficums, Love-Apples, and thefe Berries. (Vide Annals of — 
Botany, -vol. 2, p. 480. : : 
We fufpe& that this plant may have been taken up by Lin. | 
naus, both in his Puysaxris pudbefcens and peruviana; the © 
fynonym from Feuriiesr, quoted under the former, certainly — 
belongs to it, and the fpecimen in the Bankfian Herbarium, afcer- _ 
tained to be fimilar to that in the Linnean, feems to be fcarcely 
different; yet the defcription given in the Spec. Plant. in which : 
it is obferved that the berry fills the calyx, and that the ftem is — 
annual and proftrate, is altogether inapplicable. The latter is — 
faid by Linnaus to be very fimilar to Darura Metel,a_ 
refemblance we by no means obferve in our plant, otherwife g 
the reft of the defcription and its native country, would induce — 
us to believe them to be the fame. As however the defcription — 
is very incomplete, and no mention is made of the fruit being — 
eatable, we think it fafeft to confider this as a {pecies unknown — 
to Linnaus, and to give it a name which fs perhaps in itfelf — 
fufficient to diftinguifh it from every other. S136 oe 
We received this plant from Gasaisn, Gitiett, Efq. in 
whofe garden, at Drayton-Green, it has been cultivated fome — 
years. Requires to be proteéted from froft, but fhould remain — 
in the open air the whole of the fummer. In the ftove it is ever- _ 
green, and in the greenhoule lofes its foliage in the winter, but : 
the ftems put forth new leaves and fhoots in the fpring, Flowers — 
in June and July and ripens its fruit in Auguft and through the — 
reft of the fummer. In South-America it towers through the 
whole of the year, and its fruit is held in eftimation for its 
fragrance as well as agreeably acidulated {weet tafte; and is — 
likewite confidered as a ufeful cooling remedy in fevers. > 
