133 
at the bo The consumption of maté in South America is very 
oa a — of five million pounds are exported from Paraguay 
The following notes on the botany of Lig yielding Paraguay tea 
have been prepared by Mr. N. E. Brow S., one of the assistants 
i e i ‘sho 
grown in this country and elsewhere. Some of these have proved to be 
a species of Symplocos and another a species of Ele@odendron. Mr. 
Brown's investigations will unable us to unravel some at least of the 
diffieulties brought about by the writings of Miers, who, at the time, 
had not seen the type of St. Hilaire's species. 

NOTES ON CERTAIN PLANTS YIELDING PARAGUAY TEA. 
The question having arisen as to whether the plant Papa 
Kew, ini probably elsewhere, under the name of “ Paraguay Tea 
the true Ilex paraguariensis of St. Hilaire or er ies, tis 
caused me to examine so f the South American species of Ilex, and 
to compare the Kew material with the types of D. Don and Miers, 
which are now preserved in the British 9 Herbarium ; the 
following sang! the result of my investigations :— 
Miers wrote his aceount of the ^ Paraguay Tea” fie was he 
St. 
province of Minas Geraes. Sade prove to be oeei identical with 
the plant figured and described by Don as Ilex paraguensis in the 
appendix to “Lambert’s Description of the genus Pinus, as indeed is 
distinetly stated by St. Hilaire himself in his Voy yage dans le district 
des — vol. 1 P, 27 3. On referring to vip types, Ifind (hit £: 
j ‘long to this species, "for between the three 
dure to whioh Miers applied these three names I ean find absolutely 
no distinction except as to sex. St. Hilaire’s specimens received at 
Kew are vigorous young sone with very large leaves, and have r neither 
flowers nor fruit, 1 bat there can be no question as io their identity : with 
ably, hoot havi ck finel vii e leaves than the other shoot 
has; and fen these and other specimens at Kew it is easy'to see that 
the typical T. curitibensis, Miers, is a slight form of the same plat with 
the tips of the leaves a little more prolonged. m" leaves AM one of 
St. Hilaire's specimens are very similar to the two lower ones repre- 
sented on Miers' plate of 7. curitibensis, and tho foliage oF the right- 
hand fruiting branch figured in Hooker’s London Journal of Botany Ws 
1842, vol. 1, - t. 1, obtained from the Horticultural Society, as mentioned 
on p. 31 of the J barii, we agrees with the smaller leaves of Miers’ 
type of J. burifilensis, but vus teeth are not quite so deeply cut; it 



* Annals and Magazine i deum History, 3rd ser. vol. 8, p. 389; and 
Contributions to Botany, vol. 2 
