102 The Andes and the Amazon. 



red peppers, peas (always picked ripe, while green ones are 

 imported from France !), beans, melons, squashes, and mush- 

 rooms. The last are eaten to a limited extent ; Terra del 

 Fuego, says Darwin, is the only country in the world where 

 a cryptogamic plant affords a staple article of food. 



The most important grains are barley, red wheat, and 

 corn, w^ith short ears, and elongated kernels of divers colors. 

 Near the coast three crops of corn a year are -obtained ; at 

 Quito it is of slower growth, but fuller. The sugar-cane is 

 grown sparingly in the valley, but chiefly on the Pacific 

 coast. Its home is Polynesia. Quito consumes about one 

 hundred and fifty barrels of flour daily. The best sells for 

 four dollars a quintal. The common fodder for cattle is 

 alfalfa, an imported lucerne. There is no clover except a 

 wild, worthless, three-leaved species {Trifolium amabile). 

 Nearly all in the above list are cultivated for home con- 

 sumption only, and many valuable fruits and vegetables 

 which would grow well are unknown to Quitonians. As 

 Bates says of the Brazilians, the incorrigible nonchalance 

 and laziness of the people alone prevent them from sur- 

 rounding themselves with all the luxuries of a temperate 

 as well as tropical country. 



It would be an endless task to speak of the flowers. It 

 must suflfice to state that a Synopsis Plantario7n jEquato- 

 riensium^ the life-work of the venerable Professor Jame- 

 son, of the University of Quito, has just been published by 

 the tardy government. Botanists will find in these two 

 small volumes many new species unknown to American 



the sixteenth century. From Spain it traveled to Italy, Belgium, and Ger- 

 many. Sir Walter Raleigh imported some from Virginia in 1586, and plant- 

 ed them on his estate near Cork, Ireland. It is raised in Asiatic countries 

 only where Europeans have settled, and for their consumption. It is suc- 

 cessfully grown in Australia and New Zealand, where there is no native escu- 

 lent farinaceous root. Von Tschudi says there is no Avord in Quichua for po- 

 tato. It is called papa by the Napos. 



