396 Mr. J. Miers on the History of the ' Mate' Plant. 



montibus Guayara9a et Santa Cruz, versus Rio Pardo, in 

 prov. Rio Grande, et in Missionibus, versus fluv. Parana, in 

 prov. Corrientes (Bonpland, nos. 2419, 2471, 2332). 



The above two species of Bonpland appear to me identical, 

 there being no difference, except that the one is the male plant, 

 with somewhat paler leaves, the other being the female plant, 

 with less elongated and extremely dark leaves. It is evidently 

 one of the varieties of Reisseck's Ilex Paraguariensis, but it 

 bears no analogy whatever with the Paraguay type. It is one of 

 the most esteemed kinds of Mate trees, and the tea yielded by 

 it is so strong in flavour as to require tempering by admixture 

 with others of a milder kind. The leaves are very much smaller 

 than any of the preceding species, are attenuated at both ends, 

 above are of a dark green (in the $ blackish green), polished, 

 veinless, and deeply channelled at the place of the midrib; 

 beneath, in the S , glaucous, in the $ of a yellowish hue, 

 opake, owing to a minutely granulated surface, which is re- 

 motely spotted with small, immersed, black glands. In the ^ 

 the leaves are 1^-1 f inch long, ^ inch broad, on a petiole of 

 3^ lines ; in the $ they are 2-2^ inches long, 5-8 lines broad, 

 on a petiole of 2^-3 lines. The flowers are numerous in the 

 axils of the younger bi-anches, in a short fasciculated branching 

 corymb, the basal ramifications being slender, 2| lines long, 

 each bearing three small flowers on pedicels 2 lines long ; the 

 four petals are three times as large as the sepals, orbicular, 

 concave, glabrous, white, the flower expanded being 2 lines in 

 diameter : in the c? the sterile ovary is depressed, broadly 8-rayed 

 in the summit, with a small sessile 4-lobed stigma in the centre : 

 in the $ the drupe is globular, 1^ line diam., crowned with a 

 prominent mammiform sessile stigma j it encloses three or four 

 nuts *. 



6. Ilex ovalifolia, Bonpl. MSS. ; — Ilex Paraguariensis, Reiss. 

 [non St.-Hil.) in Mart. Flor. Bras, xxviii. p. 63, var. longi- 

 folia, tab. 13. fig. 16 ; — Ilex Paraguarensis, Spach, Phan. ii. 

 430. pi. 16; — glaberrima, ramulis angulato-striatis ; foliis 

 ellipticis vel elliptico-oblongis, utrinque acutis, apice breviter 

 coarctato et obtuso, coriaceis, rigidulis, glaberriiiiis, obsolete 

 deutatis, dentibus glandula minuta donatis, margine cartila- 

 gineo subreflexo, superne nitidulis, profunde viridibus vel 

 brunnescentibus, nervis immersis vix distinctis, ad costam 

 sulcatis, subtus opacis, pallide glaucis aut flavescentibus, re- 

 mote nigro-punctulatis, costa valde prominente, nervis sub- 

 patentibus inter se arcuatis paulo prominulis ; petiolo sulcato, 



* A representation of this plant is shown in Plate 65 a of the ' Contri- 

 butions.' 



