396 The Rev. R. T. Lowe 07i Chamameles coriacea 



By a misapprehension, easily accounted for, it has been stated 

 that this plant is called " Buxo" in Madeira. It is not nncommon 

 here, as perhaps elsewhere, with a countryman when hard pressed 

 for a name, to conceal his ignorance by coining an extempore 

 one for the occasion ; or rather, possibly, by taking the first 

 that occurs of some similar object or plant. In the case of the 

 present plant, it is therefore probable that some countryman 

 who was applied to for its Portuguese name, misled by a fancied 

 resemblance, really mistook it for the Buxo; which, as any 

 common Portuguese Dictionary will confirm, is the common 

 garden Box {Buxus sempervirens). Misled myself by the above 

 statement given in DeCandoUe's Prodromus, on my first arrival 

 here I made all possible inquiry after the Buxo of Madeira ; 

 and the result of every requisition for a supply, never failed to 

 be a huge bunch of common Box, or Buxus sempervirens, pro- 

 cured from some garden, of all which in Madeira it is a favourite 

 and constant inmate. Various disappointments of this sort 

 confirmed a suspicion, entertained from the first, of the impro- 

 bability that the common and well-known name Buxo (Anglic^ 

 Box) should be properly applied, peculiarly and par excellence, 

 to another quite different plant. These ideas have been since 

 strengthened to certainty, since my discovery of the true Chama- 

 meles coriacea, by the assurance that it is not at all known or 

 distinguished by any particular common name here : and indeed 

 the plant is far too rare and unimportant as far as regards prac- 

 tical utility, to render it probable it should have obtained one. 



Among the few plants of much importance in their domestic 

 uses peculiar to Madeira, Sempervivum glutinosum, or Ensaido 

 as it is called by the country-people (pronounced In-say-oung or 

 En-sai-yound), is distinguished for the use made of it by fisher- 

 men in preserving their lines. This species, belonging to a 

 genus which peculiarly characterizes the vegetation of this island 



as 



