342 NOTES OF A BOTANIST chap, xxn 
which may be of value as showing why a man with 
(apparently) such fine opportunities, and who was 
so interested in botany, yet did so little : — ] 
Jameson told me he had been to Banos only 
once in his life, although he has been over forty 
years in Ecuador. He would have liked to go 
again to gather some of the Orchids I found on 
Tunguragua, but could not spare either the time 
or the money. Suppose he were to write to ask you 
just to step over to the Shetland Islands and get him 
a form of Stereocaulon paschale which grows there — 
you could do it more easily than he could go to 
Banos and back. Yet Jameson is one of the most 
amiable of men, an ardent collector (for other 
people — much the same as I have been), and a very 
fair botanist and mineralogist. But what can a 
poor fellow do who has had a drunken (and worse) 
wife hanging on him for forty years, who burns his 
dried plants, whenever she can get hold of them, 
so that he can keep no herbarium, and who has 
often had to struggle with absolute want 
[This is the Dr. Jameson after whom was 
named the beautiful greenhouse shrub Streptosolen 
Jainesonii, as well as many other plants. 
The remainder of this volume consists of extracts 
from letters to Mr. Hanbury, having special reference 
to matters connected with his residence in the 
Andes ; together with six essays on various subjects 
relating to his travels, which have either been 
hitherto unpublished or are almost unknown to 
English readers. They have been condensed where 
necessary, but are otherwise as Spruce left them.] 
