Siaten Island aiid Cape Horn, 20 



and a grape, of a pleasant and agreeable flavour, fit for tarts, 

 puddings, or table use. It may be cultivated with advantage 

 in our gardens as an agreeable variety and pretty little bush. 



The Chelcme riielloides, and Androsace spathulata or Fue- 

 gian Auricula, are flowers of considerable beauty and interest, 

 worthy of the gayest parterre. The seeds of these were very 

 scarce. 



The elegant myrtle-like shrub Arbutus aculeata cannot be 

 sufficiently admired. It is a most pleasing evergreen, and 

 cannot fail of being a general favourite. It is very hardy, 

 and bears its berries through the winter. I have sent some 

 seeds of the celery of these regions, as it appeared to be a far 

 more vigorous and luxuriant plant than our own ; and, should 

 it improve on cultivation equally with ours, it will be an ac- 

 quisition. It is very large and fine, equal to our cultivated 

 celery in many cases. 



The Balsam plant of Staten Island forms elegant cushion- 

 Hke knolls, from the leaves of which a fragrant resinous juice 

 exudes, having very much the properties of copaiva. It con- 

 cretes naturally into a solid resin ; and, should it assimilate in 

 character to copaiva, it will prove an admirable addition to the 

 Materia Medica, as being capable of administration in the 

 form of pills, whereby it would supersede the late attempts to 

 obtain the resin of copaiva. 



The coral-like berries of Hamadryas contain a good colour- 

 ing principle analogous to Annotta. It is not altered either 

 by acids or alkalies. If the dye should be of the least value 

 the plant will thrive on waste bogs and moors. I could enu- 

 merate the particulars of other plants. The sea- weeds of 

 Staten Island are really gigantic. I found one with very acid 

 properties, which I thought rather an anomaly ; and others 

 certainly contain iodine. 



While on the subject of plants I may introduce Shetland, 

 naked, bare, and destitute as it is even of a vestige. A shred 

 or two of a most diminutive moss, requiring almost a micro- 

 scopic eye to discover it, is very scarce and rare, being found 

 only in very few spots. A lichen identical with the one on 

 the hills of Cape Horn, as the specimens attached to their re- 

 spective rocks will show, comprise the botany of Shetland, ex* 



