24O PROSERPINA. 



" 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 succu- 

 lent 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 Thibaudia, 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. Loudon's 

 Cyclopaedia, the only general book I have, tells 

 me only that it will grow well in camellia houses, 

 that its flowers develope at Christmas, and that 

 they are beautifully varied like a fritillary : where- 

 upon I am very anxious to see them, and taste 

 their fruit, and be able to tell my pupils some- 

 thing intelligible of them, — a new order, as it 

 seems to me, among my Oreiades. But for the 

 present I can make no room for them, and must 

 be content, for England and the Alps, with my 

 single class, Myrtilla, including all the fruit- 

 bearing and (more or less) myrtle-leaved kinds ; 

 and Azalea for the fruitless flushing of the loftier 



