240 General Notices. 



acquiring wealth without care than that of planting; to which he added 

 spade labour, in digging, for seven years ; and always planted so as to make 

 the thinnings pay for the labour, till all were safe and thriving." Among 

 other instances of successful planting, this gentleman says, " Colonel 

 Johnes, of Hafod, was offered 100,000/. for woods he had planted for his 

 amusement." (Cambrian, July 9. 1831.) 



The Pita de Guataca, a Plant affording a valuable Fibre for Cordage, fyc. — 

 Sir, Having been applied to for information as to where an account of the 

 plant which produces the valuable fibre known in South America by the 

 name of the Pita de Guataca is to be found, I beg leave to send you such 

 imperfect information as I possess upon the subject, for insertion in your 

 Magazine, as the fitting depository of every thing rare and valuable con- 

 nected with botany and horticulture. 



The Pita plant, of which the only specimens in Europe, of whose exist- 

 ence I am aware, are those in the possession of Mr. Pontey here, and one 

 which he exchanged with Mr. Lambert, of Boyton House, Wilts, was raised 

 in 1827 from seeds received from His Britannic Majesty's consul, Edward 

 Watts, Esq., at Carthagena, after a number of unsuccessful attempts ; suc- 

 cess being at last obtained by macerating the seeds in water for a week pre- 

 vious to sowing. The fruit of the plant is a head of capsules formed like 

 a small apple, and consisting of a number of capsules, shaped in a triangular 

 form, with the apex upwards, and enclosing from four to five seeds, of a 

 somewhat reniform shape, and mostly hollow and abortive. Each capsule 

 is fortified by a strong coriaceous bractea, spinous at the margins, and with 

 a sharp point at the apex ; being, like the capsule, of a triangular shape. 

 These are clustered round a central receptacle, forming what is not inaptly 

 termed the Pita pine. From a specimen which I received in 1827 from 

 Carthagena, with about 6 in. of the scape adhering to it, I was able to 

 observe that the scape, which appeared to be a compact mass of fibres, 



Eroduced more pines than one ; evident marks remaining of a second pine 

 aving grown on the same scape, but removed, whether by accident or 

 design, I cannot say. The flower I have never been able to procure, and 

 my description of the pine, or fruit, is from recollection, the original 

 specimen having been sent to Dr. Hooker, who, I fear, never received it, 

 as he has never noticed it in his letters. I enclose, however, one of the 

 bracteae, which I accidentally found in the bag in which I originally received 

 it. From the seed, however, it is evident that it can neither be a Pourreto'a, 

 the seeds of which are winged ; a Pitcairnza, the seeds of which are cau- 

 date ; an Acanthospora, the seeds of which are caudate ; a Tillandswz, the 

 seeds of which are pappose ; a Guzmanma, the seeds of which are acumi- 

 nated ; a Bromeh'a, the fruit of which is a berry ; nor an Ananassa, the fruit 

 of which is fleshy : differing, indeed, from almost the whole of these, in 

 having a unilocular, not a trilocular, capsule. Neither do I imagine it to 

 belong to the genera Bilbergz'a or iEchmae'a, both of which have berried 

 capsules. Hence I am led to believe it belongs to some nondescript genus, 

 whose place ought perhaps to be between Guzmanma (Spreng. Linn. Gen. 

 Plant, ed. 9. 1830, gen. 1297.) and Pourretk (gen. 1298.); and I look with 

 anxiety to the flowering of some of our plants, which are now in their fifth 

 year. The plant grows wild, in the greatest abundance, in the vicinity of 

 the village of Guataca, in the province of Carthagena ; where its leaves 

 attain, as my intelligence from that quarter acquaints me, a length of from 

 9 ft. to 12 ft., and a thickness of from 3 in. to 4 in. These are linear lan- 

 ceolate, with recurved spines along the margin, and in appearance resemble 

 what I recollect of the Bromelia Penguin and BromeKa Kardtas, both 

 plants common in the West Indies, and affording, the latter especially, a 

 valuable fibre from their leaves ; but, in point of length, the Pita exceeds 

 them. It is from the leaves that the fibre is extracted by the barbarous 



