BOTANICAL INFORMATION. 283 



Mexican Botmiy. 



The following is an extract from a Letter of oar valued aud very 

 obliging friend Henry Christy, Esq., dated Mexico, March 27, 1856. 



" I wrote you very hurriedly from Havana on the 6th, and by the 

 same mail you would receive some seeds, etc. I have now beea a fortnight 

 in this wonderful country, wonderful alike in its geological as well as 

 its vegetable features. I hope to do something for you among the 

 medicinal plants, some of which are very curious and little known, 

 having had the good fortune to fail in with some of the collectors for 

 the druggists, and also to possess sundry notes of inquiry from my in- 

 defatigable cousin, Mr. Haabury. Should you wish any collection of 

 Mexican plants, there is a German gentleman, a Mr. W. Schaffner,* a 

 druggist, residing at Orizaba, who could do anything in that way. He 

 has already collections for disposal, comprising some 400 Ferns and^ 

 Lycopodiums, 300 Grasses, etc., and 600 Composite plants. A Mr. 

 Pitts has applied himself to Cadi, and has, I hear, a first-rate collec- 

 tion. He might, though not a regular collector, be inclined to make 

 exchanges. Mr. Schaffner would like to make a general collection, 

 and thinks it would take four to five years to go over all this difficult 

 and wide-spread country. Through a druggist here, an Italian of great 

 intelligence, and in relation w^ith all the drug-collectors, a Senor Jose del 

 Pozzo, any inquiry about any particular medicinal plant could be best 

 made. There are many collectors of Orchids, both in the *Tierra 

 Templada' as well as the 'Tierra Caliente,' but, so far as I hear, they 

 have chiefly gone to Germany. In the Orchid-house at the princely 

 villa of Don Manuel Escandon, at Tacubaya, the Kichmond of Mexico, 

 I saw some very beautiful ones, which Mr. Lettsom, our Charge 

 d'Affaires, says are new. I am now a beggar for him for some seeds, 

 aud I shall be very glad if it is in your power to send them to him, 

 through the Foreign Office, next mail, addressed ' W. G. Lettsom, Esq., 

 H.B.M. Charge d'Affaires, Mexico.' He wants Victoria regia and Ne- 

 lumbium ccBruleum. The vegetation here is extraordinary,— most of our 

 fruits, vegetables, and common weeds, mixed with those of a semi- 

 tropical character. Wheat-culture ceases on the mountains between 

 here and Toluca, 9000 feet elevation; the Banana between Cadiva 



♦ From this gentleman we have lately received a very intcrestinc niul well pre- 

 served Herbarium.— Ed. 



