216 PKOSEKPINA. 



its wild growth ; or rather, to wash or winnow what may 

 be useful out of its debris, without any vestige either of 

 reference or index ; and I must look for these fragmen- 

 tary sketches of heath and grass through chapter after 

 chapter about the races of the Indian and religion of the 

 Spaniard, these also of great intrinsic value, but made 

 useless to the general reader by interspersed experiment 

 on the drifts of the wind and the depths of the sea. 



16. But one more fragment out of a note (vol. iii., p. 

 494) I must give, with reference to an order of the 

 Rhododendrons as yet wholly unknown to me. 



" The name of vine tree, ' uvas camaronas ' (Shrimp 

 grapes ?) is given in the Andes to plants of the genus 

 Thibaudia on account of their large succulent fruit. 

 Thus the ancient botanists give the name of Bear's vine, 

 ' Uva Ursi,' and vine of Mount Ida, ' Vitis Idea,' to an 

 Arbutus and Myrtillus which belong, like the Thibaudise, 

 to the family of the Ericineae. ' ' 



Now, though I have one entire bookcase and half of 

 another, and a large cabinet besides, or about fifteen 

 feet square of books on botany beside me here, and a 

 quantity more at Oxford, I have no means whatever, in 

 all the heap, of finding out what a Thibaudia is like. 

 London's Cyclopaedia, the only general book I have, 

 tells me only that it will grow well in camellia houses, 

 that its flowers develope at Christinas, and that they are 

 beautifully varied like a fritillary : whereupon I am very 

 anxious to see them, and taste their fruit, and be able to 



