90 
CONTRIBUTIONS TO BOTANY. 
sumed his inquiries into that family, and is about to publish the 
results of his investigations. The respect I have for that zealous 
botanist, together with the desire on my part to avoid contra- 
vention, and the knowledge that he has long studied the subject, 
induce me to cede to him the priority. As he has the advantage 
of consulting collections to which I have no means of access, 
more may be anticipated from his exertions. I reserve to my- 
self, however, the right of resuming the subject at a future time, 
and of carrying out my original plan of defining the limits of the 
genera and subgenera I have sought to estabhsh upon features 
hitherto unobserved, and also of illustrating their characters by 
drawings of one or more species of each group, accompanied by 
analytical figures of the flower, fruit, and seed. 
On the History of the Mate Plant, and the different 
Species of Ilex employed in the Preparation of the 
‘Yerba de Mate,^ or Paraguay Tea. 
Notwithstanding the seemingly authoritative evidence we have 
on record concerning it, I have entertained a doubt for many 
years past in regard to the plant which produces the celebrated 
Paraguay Tea, the favourite beverage of the Spanish South 
Americans. I will here detail the results of my investigations 
into this subject, and will preface the inquiry by a short history 
of the events which had great influence on the production and 
trade of this article of commerce : these events are the more 
interesting as they are in some degree connected with the bio- 
graphy of the celebrated botanist Bonpland, to whom I am 
indebted for the knowledge of the true plants which produce 
the Yerba. 
In the settlements of the Indians in Paraguay and along the 
borders of the Eiver Parana, under the dominion of the Spanish 
government, administered as they were at that period by the 
Jesuits, the preparation of the Yerba constituted the principal 
branch of industry of the country. The plant from which the 
Mate is prepared was first mentioned by Azara, as growing wild 
in many parts of Paraguay. It is found in great abundance in 
all the moist valleys of the ramifications that branch from the 
main chain of mountains called Maracaju, which, rising in that 
part of Paraguay bordering upon Matto Grosso, in lat. 19° S., 
and tending S.E., divides the northern half of the countiy into 
two distinct watersheds — the rivers flowing westward running 
into the river Paraguay, and those eastward into the Parana. 
This chain, after a length of 150 miles, suddenly takes a more 
