The madi (madia. gen. nov.) Of this plant there are two kinds, the one wild the other cultivated. The cultivated, which I have called madia sativa, has a branching hairy stalk, nearly five feet in height; the leaves are villous and placed by threes; they are four inches in length, half an inch in breadth, and of a bright green like the leaves of the rose laurel; its flowers are radiated and of a yellow colour; the seeds are convex on one side, and covered with a very thin brownish pellicle on the other; they are from four to five lines in length, and enclosed in a spherical pericarpium of about eight or nine lines in diameter. An excellent oil is obtained from the seed, either by expression, or merely boiling them; it is of an agreeable taste, very mild, and as clear as the best olive oil. Feuillé, who resided three years in Chili, praises it highly, and gives it the preference to any olive oil used in France.* This plant, hitherto unknown in Europe, would become a valuable acquisition to those countries where the olive cannot be raised. The wild madi (madia meliosa) is distinguished from the other by its leaves which are amplexicaul and glutinous to the feeling.

The pimento (capsicum) called by the Indians thapi. Of this plant many species are cultivated in Chili, among others the annual pimento, which is there perennial, the berry pimento, and the pimento

From the seed of this plant is obtained an admirable oil, which the inhabitants of the country use in various ways-to alieviate pain by rubbing with it the diseased part, to season their victuals, and also for light. To my taste it is sweeter and more pleasant than most of cur olive oil, which it resembles in colour.-Feuillė, vol. iii.

with a subligneous stalk. The inhabitants make use equally of all the three to season their food.

Besides those which I have mentioned the Chilians make use of many other excellent plants which, though natural to the country, require a more attentive cultivation; of these the principal are the umbellifera, the bermudiana or illmu, and the hemerocallis of Feuillé. The umbellifera, or heracleum tuberosum, in its leaves, flowers and seed resembles the illmu, but is distinguished from it by the quantity of its bulbs, which are frequently six inches long and three broad; the colour of the bulbs is yellow and their taste very pleasant, it grows naturally in sandy places near hedges, and produces abundantly.

The bermudiana bulbosa, or the illmu of Feuillé, has a branchy stalk, and its leaves are very similar to those of the leek; the flower is of a violet colour, and divided into six parts, which are turned back towards the foot-stalk; it has six stamens and a triangular pistil; the seeds are black and round, and the bulbs when boiled or roasted are excellent food.*

The hemerocallis, or, the liuto of the Indians, has a stalk of a foot in height; the leaves are pointed and embrace the stem, which divides itself at the top into a number of pedicles bearing a beautiful red flower of the shape of a lily. The root is bulbous, and yields a very light white and nutritious flour, which is used for the sick.

* The natives of the country make use of the root of this plant in their soups, and it is very pleasant to the taste, as I have myself experienced.--Feuillé.

The liliaceous plants offer a great variety throughout Chili, and are known to the Araucanians by the generic name of gil. I have collected myself more than twenty-three different species of them, many of which were adorned with superb flowers.

In the province of St. Jago is found a species of wild basil (ocymum salinum) differing in its appearance from the common or garden species only in its stalk, which is round and jointed; but in its smell and taste it resembles more the alga, or sea-weed, than the basil. This plant continues to increase in growth from the first opening of the spring to the commencement of winter, and is every morning covered with saline globules that are hard and shining, and give it the appearance of being coated with dew. The husbandmen collect and make use of this salt instead of the common kind, which it far exceeds in taste. Each plant produces daily about half an ounce, a phenomenon, the cause of which I am not able satisfactorily to explain, as it grows in a very fertile soil, exhibiting no appearance of salt, and at more than sixty miles distance from the sea.

SECT. III. Herbs used in Dying.-From time immemorial have the Chilians made use of indigenous plants for dying; and such is their excellence, that they communicate the liveliest and most durable colours to their cloths, without the aid of any foreign production.* I have in my possession a piece of

* Besides the medicinal herbs, they have others for dying, the colours of which are very durable and do not change in washing. Among these is the reilbon, a species of madder, with a leaf some

cloth dyed in that country, which in thirty years' use has lost nothing of the original lustre of its colours, which are blue, yellow, red and green, neither from exposure to the air or the use of soap. The natives of the southern provinces obtain a blue from a plant with which I am unacquainted; but in the Araucanian and the Spanish possessions they make use of indigo diluted with fermented urine, which gives to the substance dyed a beautiful and durable colour.

Red is obtained from a species of madder called relbun (rubia Chilensis). It usually grows under shrubs in sandy places; its stalk is nearly round, the leaves oval, pointed and whitish, and placed by fours as in the filbert; its flowers are monopetalous, and divided into four parts; the seed is contained in two little red berries, which are united like those of the European madder; the root is red, runs deep into the earth, and its lateral fibres frequently occupy a space of many feet in circumference.

A species of agrimony (eupatorium Chilense) known in the country by the name of contra yerba, furnishes the yellow. This plant has a violet stalk of about two feet in height, divided by small knots, from whence issue the leaves in pairs opposite to each other; they are of a bright green, three or four inches in length, narrow and indented; the branches are axillary, and produce some flosculous flowers of a yellow colour, resembling those of the agri

what less than the European, the root of which is boiled in water in the same manner to extract the dye. The poquell is a species of southern wood, of a golden colour.-Frazier, vol. i.

mony. In the centre of the flower a small worm is almost always discoverable, whose body is composed of eleven very distinct rings. A yellow is also obtained from the poquel (santolina tinctoria) a species of cress, with long and narrow leaves resembling wild flax; it puts forth three or four stalks two feet in height, striated and crowned at the top with a yellow semi-globular flower, composed of several small ones. The stalks furnish a green

colour.

The root of a perennial plant, called panke (panke tinctoria, gen. nov.) furnishes a fine black, and is acknowledged to be one of the most useful plants in Chili. Some writers have given it the name of bardana Chilensis, from the resemblance of its leaves to those of the burdock, although its fructification is entirely different. The root is very long, frequently five inches thick, rough and black without, and white within. The leaves are attached to long petioles, and are palmated; they are of a bright green above and ash-coloured beneath, frequently two feet in diameter, and of a subacid taste. From the centre of the radical leaves shoots up a single stalk, five feet in height and three inches thick, covered with a rough bark furnished with thorns. This stalk has no leaves except at the top, where there are three or four much smaller than those at the root, surmounted by a large conical fasciculus, or bunch, which produces the flowers and the seed; the flowers are white, a little inclining to red, bell-shaped, and monopetalous; the seed is greenish, round, and enclosed in a capsule of the same form.