1 84 NOTES OF A NATURALIST. 



yet in flower, differed a good deal from the form which 

 I had seen at Valparaiso, and the foliage was much 

 the same that I afterwards found in the channels of 

 Patagonia. Among the few plants yet flowering at 

 this season was a large lobelia, of the group formerly 

 classed as a distinct genus under the name Tupa* 

 and which is peculiar to Chili and Peru. 



* As happens with many other plants described by early botanists, 

 there has been much confusion in regard to the species named by 

 Linnaeus Lobelia Tupa. The plant was first made known to Europeans 

 by the excellent traveller, Father FeuilUe, whose " Journal des Obser- 

 vations Physiques Mathematiques et Botaniques faites sur les c6tes de 

 I'Am&ique meridionale, etc.," published in 1714, is a book which may 

 still be consulted with advantage. His descriptions of plants are usually 

 ■careful and accurate, but the accompanying plates all ill-executed and 

 often misleading. Linnaeus, followed by Willdenow, refers to Feuillee's 

 work, but gives a very brief descriptive phrase which suits equally well 

 Feuillee's plant and several others subsequently discovered. Alton, in 

 the " Hortus Kewensis," gives the name Lobelia Tupa to a plant which 

 is plentiful about Valparaiso, where I found it still in flower, the seeds 

 of which were received at Kew about a century ago from Menzies. 

 This is now generally known by the not very appropriate name Tupa 

 salicifolia of Don, but was first published by Sims in the Botanical 

 Magazine, No. 1325, as Lobelia gigantea, which name it should now 

 bear. The plant which I found near Cauquenes appears to be the 

 Tupa Berterii of DecaudoUe, a rare species, apparently not known to 

 the authors of the " Flora Chilena," No doubt could have arisen as to 

 the plant intended by Linnaeus as Lobelia Tupa if writers had referred 

 to Feuillee's full and accurate description. His account of the poisonous 

 effects of the plant was probably derived from the Indians, and may 

 be exaggerated. The whole plant, he says, is most poisonous, the mere 

 smell causing vomiting, and any one touching his eyes after handling 

 the leaves is seized with blindness. I may remark that the latter 

 statement, which appears highly improbable, receives some confirmation 

 from the observations of Mr. Nation, mentioned above in page 77. 

 The plant which I saw in Peru, but failed to collect, is much smaller 

 than most of the Chilian species, and has purple flowers, but is nearly 

 allied in structure. It is probably the Tupa secunda of Don. I gather 

 from a passage in one of Mr. Philippi's writings that the word tupa in 

 Araucanian signifies poison. We are yet, I believe, ignorant of the 



