i 

 NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY OF GLASGOW. 4o 



presence of certain tropical forms, such as palms; 5th, the differ- 

 ence between the Chilian and the British species, I will now 

 show some dried specimens, noting their peculiarities, and will 

 take first a few which have become familiar to us from cultivation 

 in this country : — 



Calceolaria. — Several species grow luxuriantly in the neighbour- 

 hood of Valparaiso. I think our gardeners waste their time and 

 skill in trying to grow calceolarias out of doors. To any one who 

 has seen them growing wild, our garden plants seem dwarfed, 

 pinched and insignificant. 



Fuchsia. — This is, I believe, the wild form of the fuchsias now 

 growing so freely in the open air at all the Clyde watering-places. 

 I gathered this specimen near Valparaiso, 



Potato (Solatium tuberosum). — I believe the potato is found wild 

 on the Andes from Chile to Mexico. I gathered the specimens 

 behind Valparaiso, but I am not sure that they are truly wild — the 

 tubers are suspiciously like those sold in the shops. The Chilenos eat 

 potatos twice a day, — to breakfast and dinner, so that they form a 

 very well-known article of food. If they were to become diseased 

 and scarce, everybody would soon know of it; but, though making 

 inquiries, I never heard of the potato disease all the eight years I 

 was in the country, till at last, in 1872, just a few months before 

 I came away, a Scotchman told me that he had seen, near Santiago, 

 a field of potatos with blackened shau's. In what state the tubers 

 were I don't know. If the disease first appeared in Chile about 

 1870, that was a quarter of a century after its first appearance in 

 Britain. The potato is a native of dry places, and produces 

 tubers, perhaps from the uncertainty of being able to produce seeds. 

 Those behind Valparaiso, though they flower freely, do not ripen 

 seeds, as the shaws are burnt up by the sunshine before there is 

 time. 



In cultivating the potato we wrong it in several ways: we 

 divide the tuber — the store of food nature had intended for one, 

 amongst several plants — or as the farmers say, we cut the potato 

 into sets; and in doing this we necessarily destroy nature's protec- 

 tion — the skin — and leave the raw flesh exposed to water, worms, 

 and all the hurtful influences it may meet with underground. 

 The plant bears this treatment for several generations, but by and 

 by all its reserve energy is exhausted, and when a trying time 

 comes, such as a wet season, it succumbs. Immediately thereupon 



