210 



An Inviting Field for a Collector. 



By W. E. S afford. 



On sending a package of plants collected by me in the Straits 

 of Magellan to Dr. R. A. Philippi, of Santiago, Chile, the recog- 

 nized authority on Chilian botany, he kindly determined for me 

 a number of species which I had been unable to classify ; and in 

 his letter he says : 



" I have received on different occasions lots of plants of the 

 Strait and have been therefore highly astonished to find that 

 among the seventy-eight species you sent me not less than four 

 were undescribed, and of these two may, perhaps, be erected into 

 new genera^the petals of the Ranunculns [?) abe7Ta7is are so 

 aberrant, and the corolla and stamens of Mtcromeria{?) pustlla 

 are likewise different enough from the same organs in the genuine 

 species of that genus." 



The Raniuicidus (f ) to which Dr. Philippi refers is the glossy- 

 leaved '* Ranunculns or CaWia, somewhat like R, Ficaria^' which 

 I collected at Gregory Bay, (see p. 19 of this volume), and the 

 Micronuria {?) pusilla, Phil, is a small labiate from the same lo- 

 cality. The other new species are a Draba and a Vicia, which 

 Dr. Philippi has described as D, Saffordi and V, Saffordi, The 

 discovery of these four new species in one day's collecting within 

 a radius of two miles, shows how imperfectly the botanical field of 

 the Eastern Strait-region has been explored. I am sure a bot- 

 anist could find no field more inviting and at the same time ac- 

 cessible than the immediate vicinity of Gregory Bay.. The regular 

 lines of steamers to Valparaiso pass through the Strait, and 

 all stop at Sandy Point, only a few miles farther on. At Sandy 

 Point one could easily get an assistant and proceed in a boat to 

 Gregory Bay. He ought to reach there by the first week in 

 November, taking with him a supply of canned meats and veg- 

 etables from the United States. At Gregory Bay he could find 

 comfortable shelter in the home of the shepherd. 



He would, I am sure, be amply rewarded for any little priva- 

 tions by the result of his season's work ; and if he be fond of 

 shooting, he could vary the monotony of his life when his presses 

 are full, and at the same time supply his table with an abundance 



