192 
In 1884, Mr. F. E. d who had undertaken a mission to the 
Plate River for the Santa Fé Land Company, brought wee him 
numerous species of opus grasses, which were determined at Kew,. 
and also some living plants of what were believed to be duse from 
the Gran Chaco. With these plants, Mr. Harman brought a dried 
specimen of an infloresence. The plants have grown at Kew, nd are 
now in a flourishing condition in the Temperate House. As will be 
shown later, they are not true Caraguatá, and they possess no merit as 
fibrous plants. On the other hand the dried infloresence, brought at 
the same time, belonged to the fibre-producing species. — It is probable | 
that the name Caraguatá is used in a generie sense in the Argentine 
and neighbouring countries; and, as already shown, it is applied indis- 
criminately to plants of a very widely di fferent character. ‘There is, 
however, a plant known as Caraguatá or Caraguatá Ibera, which yields 
a very valuable fibre. It has been noticed in works of travel, and its 
valuable properties have been highly extolled. The difficulty was = 
obtain authentic pee ens of the true fibre-yielding plant, and 
out exactly what it was. Under these circumstances a further, iod. as 
it proved ena ot effort was made to obtain specimens as shown in 
the following correspondence :— 
Rovan GARDENS, Kew, to Foreign OFFICE. 
Royal Gar sues Kew 
Sir, mber 20, 1889. 
I am desired by Mr. Thiselton-Dyer to esor you that in the 
year 1877 the late Mr. Thomas Routledge forwarded, for determination, 
to Kew some fibre and leaves of a p ant from the Argentine Republic 
. known locally as Caraguatá. The leaves were bro and in an im- 
perfect condition. Moreove r,it was considered doubtful whether they 
belonged at all to the plant which yielded the fibre. "The leaves, as far 
as could be ascertained from the scraps sent, belonged to a species o 
Eryngium. (Kew Report, 1877, p. 37.) 
2. At the recent Laposition — held at Paris in 1889, I 
noticed in the Paraguayan Court e leaves and fibre called Caraguata 
said to a derived from pa Caraguata. There is no plant 
nown to European botanists under this name, The Caraguata of 
Par en is a plant which it is very desirable to FEDEN, and 
specimens of it ìn a living and dried state would be very acceptable for 
the icem = m 
plant, its distribution, and local uses, and also small specimens of 
living men paeked in a dry box, and seeds for this establishment. 
nical determination of the plant, : z desirable to obtain dried 
cimens ne the leaves, flowers, and fru iese latter im im be 
forwarded by post between sheets of paper pager by ca 
. Any reasonable — incurred on account of this arcad will 
be defrayed in usual cou 
I have, &c. 
Sir Villiers mr K.C.M.G., . (Signed) D. Morris. 
Foreign Office. 

