98 
CONTRIBUTIONS TO BOTANY. 
stamping-mills worked by water-power or steam-engines, and 
packed in bags by means of presses. The quality of the Yerba 
has thus been much improved. 
We owe to St. -Hilaire the first outline of the botanical features 
of the tree, growing about Curitiba, that yields the Yerba : it 
was only a short diagnosis, published in 1822 * * * § , when he ascer- 
tained it to be a species of Ilex, which he considered identical 
with the Paraguay plant, and which was named inaccurately, 
through a typographical error. Ilex Paraguariensisf, a name he 
afterwards abandoned in 1824 for that of Ilex Matte he, how- 
ever, resumed the former name in 1833 §. In the meanwhile, 
Mr. Lambert, in 1824 ||, gave a much fuller description of the 
plant, accompanied by a good drawing made from specimens 
sent from Buenos Ayres, and probably obtained from one of the 
Spanish Missions : he called it Ilex Paraguensis. 
I had always been impressed with the conviction that the 
different qualities of Yerba brought to market were prepared 
from different species of Ilex ; and hence the doubt occurred to 
me whether the plant described by St. -Hilaire from Curitiba be 
really identical with the true Paraguayan type. The grounds 
for this surmise were founded upon the dissimilar colour of the 
two Yerbas, the difference in their flavour, and the higher price 
always obtained for the Yerba de Paraguay compared with the 
Yerba de Paranagua. The short diagnosis of St.-Hilaire an- 
swered equally to several species that I had seen. Sir Wm. 
Hooker, in 1842% gave a very interesting account of the Yerba, 
describing also the mate or cup, formed out of a small calabash 
{cuy), in which the infusion is prepared, and out of which it is 
drawn into the mouth through a bombilla-, he added the cha- 
racters of the different varieties, which he considered identical 
with the Ilex Paraguayemis, and of these he gave two excellent 
figures with analyses. This memoir, instead of solving my 
doubts, only rendered the question still more enigmatical ; for 
in it is classed, as a mere variety, a plant which I brought from 
Rio de Janeiro, which I found growing in the Botanic Gardens 
there, and which I was assured by the Rev. Prey Leandro, at 
that time Director of those Gardens, was the ‘‘ Arbol do Mate,” 
or ‘ Paraguay Tea-tree.’ This plant, which is well figured in 
* Mem. Mus. ix. 351 ; Spreng. Syst. iv. cur. post. p. 48. 
t Dr. Reisseck (FI. Bras. 28. p. 115) thinks the word “ Paraguariensis 
ita forsan rectius scribitur pro Paraguayensis but this cannot be. The 
word is unquestionably used adjectively for the country Paraguay. There 
is no place known by the name of Paraguari. St.-Hilaire found his plant 
near Paranagua, but that could never have suggested the word in question. 
It was at first, no doubt, a mere typographical error, which St.-Hilaire did 
not think necessary to correct afterwards. 
J Hist, des Plantes remarq. de Bresil et Paraguay, i. Introd. p. xli. 
§ Voy. Diamant, i. 273. H Lambert, Pin. IT Lond. Joum. Bot. i. 30. 
