OBSERVATIONS ON HÖLL’S LIST. 31 
** Cocos nucifera, Linn." This is quite a slip of the pen 
for Phcenix dactylifera, L., of which there are several fine 
trees in Funchal, as well as in the villages all along the south 
coast of Madera, and about the town of Porto Santo. Though 
the Date-tree, in order to bring its fruit to perfection, requires, 
according to Professor Schouw, a mean temperature of 21? 
Centigrade, or about 70? F., while that of Funchal scarcely 
exceeds 65? or 669 F., I have tasted very tolerable Dates pro- 
duced by some of these trees in Funchal. Yet they certainly 
do not ripen well; they want sweetness, and have not, I believe, 
been ever known to germinate like those of Catania, whose 
mean temperature is also nearly the same as ours, viz. 18-19? 
Cent. according to Schouw. "Their ripening here at all is some- 
what precarious, depending on thefavourableness of the season. 
It is scarcely necessary to add, that the real Cocoa-nut could 
not be here intended, for there was only one wretched starved 
plant of it in existance in the Island during Mr. Hóll's resi- 
dence, and this not above two feet high, growing in Mr. Pen- 
fold's garden at the Achada. 
* Cupressus glauca, Linn.,” being admitted into the List, I 
do not see why many other common plants, much less pecu- 
liarly the mere inmates of gardens, are excluded. 
‘Quercus pedunculata, Willd." is at present as much a 
garden-plant here as the last. It has not been introduced 
above twenty-five years, but grows well, even in the lowest or 
tropical region of the Cactus ; and, at an elevation of 200 feet, 
thrives prodigiously. 
* Parietaria JMaderensis, Reichb.; fruticulosa, ramis as- 
surgentibus simplicibus foliisque ovali-acuminatis obtusiuscu- 
lis villosis, glomerulis paucifloris."— How is this to be dis- 
tinguished from the common Europzan P. officinalis, L.? I 
have carefully scrutinized a specimen given me by Mr. Holl 
himself, and compared it with numerous others that I ga- 
thered, on the very rocks from which Mr. Höll obtained his, a 
low basaltic reef, stretching into thesea, called the “ Gorgulho,” 
about a mile and a half to the westward of Funchal: and the 
only appreciable differences between these and others gathered 
