342 NOTES OF A BOTANIST CHAP, 



which may be of value as showing why a man with 

 (apparently) such fine opportunities, and who was 

 so interested in botany, yet did so little : ] 



Jameson told me he had been to Banos only 

 once in his life, although he has been over forty 

 years in Ecuador. He would have liked to go 

 again to gather some of the Orchids I found on 

 Tunguragua, but could not spare either the time 

 or the money. Suppose he were to write to ask you 

 just to step over to the Shetland Islands and get him 

 a form of Stereocaulo n paschale which grows there 

 you could do it more easily than he could go to 

 Banos and back. Yet Jameson is one of the most 

 amiable of men, an ardent collector (for other 

 people much the same as I have been), and a very 

 fair botanist and mineralogist. But what can a 

 poor fellow do who has had a drunken (and worse) 

 wife hanging on him for forty years, who burns his 

 dried plants, whenever she can get hold of them, 

 so that he can keep no herbarium, and who has 

 often had to struggle with absolute want ? 



[This is the Dr. Jameson after whom was 

 named the beautiful greenhouse shrub Streptosolen 

 Jamesonii, as well as many other plants. 



The remainder of this volume consists of extracts 

 from letters to Mr. H anbury, having special reference 

 to matters connected with his residence in the 

 Andes ; together with six essays on various subjects 

 relating to his travels, which have either been 

 hitherto unpublished or are almost unknown to 

 English readers. They have been condensed where 

 necessary, but are otherwise as Spruce left them.] 



