"I had an opportunity of conversing with a sensible and well-informed gentleman residing here, and whose veracity I have not the least reason to doubt. From him I learnt some particulars, which, during the short stay of three days, did not fall within my own observation. He informed me, that a shrub is common here, agreeing exactly with the description given by Tournefort and Linnaeus, of the tea shrub, as growing in China and Japan. It is reckoned a weed, and he roots out thousands of them every year from his vineyards. The Spaniards, however, of the island, sometimes use it as tea, and ascribe to it all the qualities of that imported from China. They also give it the name of tea; but what is remarkable, they say it was found here when the islands were first discovered."
"Another botanical curiosity, mentioned by him, is what they call the impregnated lemon.[74] It is a perfect and distinct lemon, inclosed within another, differing from the outer one only in being a little more globular. The leaves of the tree that produces this sort, are much longer than those of the common one; and it was represented to me as being crooked, and not equal in beauty."
[Footnote 74: The writer of the Relation of Teneriffe, in Sprat's History, p. 207, takes notice of this lemon as produced here, and calls it _Pregnada_. Probably, _emprennada_, the Spanish word for impregnated, is the name it goes by.--D.]
"From him I learnt also, that a certain sort of grape growing here, is reckoned an excellent remedy in phthisical complaints; and the air and climate, in general, are remarkably healthful, and particularly adapted to give relief in such diseases. This he endeavoured to account for, by its being always in one's power to procure a different temperature of the air, by residing at different heights in the island; and he expressed his surprise that the English physicians should never have thought of sending their consumptive patients to Teneriffe, instead of Nice or Lisbon. How much the temperature of the air varies here, I myself could sensibly perceive, only in riding from Santa Cruz up to Laguna; and you may ascend till the cold becomes intolerable. I was assured that no person can live comfortably within a mile of the perpendicular height of the Pic, after the month of August."[75]