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Stapf . — The Statices of the Canaries 
All the Statices of the subsection Nobiles are endemic in the Canaries, 
some being restricted to a single locality of very limited extent, others 
to a single island, and none occur at the same time in more than two of 
the islands of the archipelago. As they are very conspicuous objects on 
account of their brilliant blue inflorescences, and to some degree familiar to the 
inhabitants — they call them ‘Siempreviva del mar 1 ’ — it is not probable that 
future exploration will add much to their areas as they are known at present. 
On the contrary, there is a considerable risk of their total disappearance. 
The first species of the Nobiles group of Statice that became known 
was discovered by Francis Masson, who on his way to South Africa col- 
lected in Tenerifife in 1 773 - He found it, to quote his own note attached 
to his specimen in the British Museum, ‘on a rock in the sea, opposite 
the fountain which waters port Orotava.’ He presented to the younger 
Linnaeus a specimen which Solander 1 named Statice arborea , adding as 
locality : ‘ Teneriffa, circa Ramla in rupibus maritimis.’ Masson’s discovery 
was, however, not made known until more than forty years later, when, 
in 1819, J. Smith 1 described it as Statice arborea from ‘the maritime 
rocks at Buraao and Rambla in the isle of Teneriffe.’ The apparently con- 
flicting statements concerning the locality can easily be reconciled. Buraao 
is a slip for Burgado, a small cove immediately to the east of the Rambla del 
Castro, a well-known littoral terrace on the north coast of Teneriffe, about 
5 kil. from Puerto d’ Orotava. In that cove there are some calcareous 
springs 2 , probably Masson’s ‘ fountain,’ and at a stone-throw’s distance from 
the shore two basaltic cliffs on which Berthelot and Webb actually found 
the plant growing in 1829 3 . Long before that, in 1796, however, Ledru, 
a botanist who accompanied Capt. Baudin on his expedition to the West 
Indies, had also collected the plant, but where is not exactly known, nor is 
there any reference to his find until 1817, when Poiret 4 called attention to it. 
A few years later, probably very soon after Humboldt’s short stay in Teneriffe, 
it was found again by Aug.Broussonet,an accomplished zoologist and botanist, 
who at that time was French Consul in the Canaries. Broussonet was soon 
afterwards appointed Professor in the University at Montpellier, where, in 
1805, he published a catalogue 5 of the plants of the Botanic Garden then 
in his charge, enumerating in it a ‘ Statice arborescens , Br.’ without any 
description or other remarks. He distributed, however, at the same time, 
herbarium specimens of that plant to several botanists, among them also 
to Willdenow 6 , who, in 1809, published a description of it under the name 
1 J. Smith in Rees, Cyclopedia, xxxiv (18 rp}. 
2 Rothpletz in Petermann’s Geographische Mitteilungen, xxxv (1889), p. 245. 
3 Berthelot et Webb, Histoire naturelle des lies Canaries, III, i, p. 8, and iii, p. 181. See 
also their Atlas, Vues phytostatiques, tab. viii, fig. 3. 
4 Poiret, Encyclopedic methodique, Suppl. v, p. 236. 
5 Broussonet, Elenchus Plantarum Horti Botanici Monspeliensis anno 1804 (1805), p. 58. 
6 Willdenow, Enumeratio Plantarum Horti Regii Botanici Berolinensis (1809), p. 337* 
