48 



BOTANY. 



have been resorted to, to found a professorship, and augment 

 the colle£lions in the botanic garden of the Capital. Our in- 

 defatigable botanist, aided by the skilful draughtsman, Don 

 Francisco Pulgar, is unceasingly occupied, and keeps up a 

 constant communication between the mountains, Lima, and 

 Madrid. The Flora of Peru, augmented by new and conti- 

 nual supplies, will be an eternal monument of the wisdom and 

 magnificence of two sovereigns ; a rich accumulation of the 

 treasures of the vegetable kingdom ; and the most authentic 

 testimony to prove, that Peru does not abound less in exqui- 

 site plants, than in precious metals. 



Let it not, however, be thought, that the inestimable col- 

 le6lions we have cited, have already exhausted the produ6bions 

 of that nature. The unknown and rare plants which grow 

 on the borders of the Andes, would of themselves form a cata- 

 logue. The want of tracks to penetrate into the spacious le- 

 vels these mountains contain, and to examine the diredtions of 

 the rivulets and streams by which they are interse6led, is an 

 insuperable obstacle to the exa6t inquiries which, it is trusted, 



merely pointed out the professors and men of science whom we have ascertained to 

 have been in this kingdom, without noticing those who, in Europe or elsewhere, 

 have treated the subje£l. We shall conclude by citing the distinguished personages 

 by whom the science is prote£ted, and whose names will be transmitted to posterity 

 by the plants which have been dedicated to them. They are as follows : Father 

 Francisco Gonzales Laguna, to whose care the foundation and dire£lion of the bo- 

 tanical garden of Lima have been entrusted. Don Hypolito Ruiz has dedicated to 

 him the Gonzaletia dependens, which inhabits the mountains. Dodlor Cosme Bueno, 

 principal cosmographer of Peru, to whom the same botanist has dedicated the Cosmea 

 bahamifera, commonly called Limonc'illo. And, lastly, Do6lor Gabriel Moreno, a 

 physician of Lima, to whom M. Dombey has dedicated the Peruana-Morena, vul- 

 garly called Rosario in the distridl of Chauchin, where it is indigenous. 



will 



