2 Spec. Plant. Willd. i. 957. Cl. 5. Ord. 1. Pentandria Monogynia. Nat. ord. Cinchonaceae. G. 346. Corolla funnel-shaped. Capsule inferior, two-celled, bipartite, with a parallel partition. Seed winged. * Corollas downy, with the stamens included. Species 1. C lancifolia, Mutis. Papel Periodici de Santa Fe, p. 465. Rhode. Monog. Cinchonae Generis Tentamen, p. 513.

Zea, Annates de Historia Natural, torn. ii. p. 207.3 Flora Peruv.

torn. ii. p. 50. t.191. Humboldt, Plantae Aequinoctiales, p. 33.

t.10. Lambert's Description of the Genus Cinchona, plate 1, ibid. Illustration of the Genus, etc. p. 2. Species 2. C. oblongifolia, Mutis. Per. de Santa Fe. Zea, 1. c. ii.

211. C. magnifolia. C. lutescens. Flor. Peruv. ii. 53. t. 196.

Quinologia, art. vi. 71. Species 3. C. cordifolia, Mutis. Per. de Santa Fe. Zea, 1. c. ii. 214.

C. purpurea. Flor. Peruv. torn. ii. 52. t. 193. C. ovata, Ruiz,

Quinologia. C. micrantha. Flor. Peruv. 62. t.194. Lambert.

p. 21. plate ii.4 Illustration, etc. p. 3.

1 Medico- Chirurg. Trans, vol. v. p. 340.

2 Supposed to be named after the Countess del Chinchon, wife of a viceroy of Peru, who introduced it into Europe, on her return to Spain in 1640. The Peruvian name is Gannanaperide.

3 Zea adds the following synonymes: Quinquina, Condam. A. A. Paris, 1738. C. officinalis, Linn. Syst. Veg. ed. 10. p 929. Spec. Plant, p. 244. Gen. Plant, ed. 7. p. 91. C officinalis. Vahl. Act. Soc. Nat. Haum. 1. fasc. p. 17. t. i. C. nitida, Flora Peruv. et Chil. ii. p. 50. t. 191.; and Ruiz, Quinologia, art ii. 56. C. lanceoluta, Flora Peruv. 51. C. glabra, Ruiz, Quinol. art. iv. 64. C. rosea, Flora Peruv. 54. C. fusca, Ruiz, Quinol. art. viii. 77.

Besides these synonymes, Zea adds, C. officinalis, Linn. Suppl. p. 144. s. v. edit. Persoon, p. 222. C. pubescens, Act. Haum. 1. fasc. p. 17. t. 2. This last species was confounded by Linnaeus with the Condaminia, to which he gave the name officinalis.

This important genus, of which twenty-four species have been described, is not yet altogether freed from the ambiguity which has so long involved it; and although much has been effected by the industry of the Spanish botanists, whom their government sent out to make inquiries concerning it, yet many species remain undescribed1, from which it is very probable the bark-gatherers collect some part of the large cargoes of cinchona bark which are annually sent to Europe. The three kinds designated in the British pharmacopoeias have been distinguished and named as above by Mutis, a celebrated botanist, who resided in the neighbourhood of Santa Fe de Bogota, as director of the exportation of bark 2; and his observations have been fully detailed by his pupil Zea; whilst the travels of Humboldt and Bonpland have afforded them an opportunity of ascertaining accurately, and describing the species first delineated by Condamine in 1738, in the Mem. de FAcademie 3, and named by Linnaeus officinalis; under which term, however, no less than two very distinct species were confounded by that distinguished naturalist.

The present edition of the London Pharmacopoeia places the three kinds of barks known in the shops as those furnished by three distinct species, namely, C. lancifolia, C. cordifolia, and C. oblongifolia; thus adopting the arrangement and names of Mutis : but the propriety of this is very problematical.

Prior to the year 1772, all the cinchona bark brought to Europe was shipped at the ports of the Pacific; but since Don Jose Celestina Mutis discovered the cinchona about Santa Fe de Bogota much of it has come by the way of Car-thagena de Indias to Cadiz.4 Before describing the officinal

1 In a large collection of dried specimens of the genus cinchona in my possession, which were collected in J 805, both near Loxa and Santa Fe, I find many species which are not mentioned in the works of any of the Spanish botanists; nor even by Mr. Lambert, to whom I gave specimens of many of the species.

2 Mutis is a native of Cadiz, and went to Santa Fe in 1760, as physician to the viceroy Don Pedro Misia de la Cerda. He discovered the Cinchona, in the forests between Guaduas and Santa Fe, in 1772; although the credit of this discovery was attempted to be wrested from him by Don Sebastian Jose Lopez Ruiz; who, however, from his own documents, transmitted by his brother to Baron Humboldt, to prove the priority of his discovery, appears to have known the Cinchona about Honda only since 1774.

3 Condamine made the first and the only attempt that has been made to bring young cinchona trees alive to Europe. He nursed them for eight months, during a passage of 1200 leagues; but they were washed out of the boat into the sea, and lost near Cape Orange, north of Para.-Lambert's Illust. of the Genus Cinchona, 4to. 1821, p. 24.

4 Humboldt informs us, that the quantity of cinchona bark annually exported from America is 12,000 or 14,000 quintals. The kingdom of Santa Fe furnishes 2000 of these, which are sent from Carthagena; 110 are furnished by Loxa; and the provinces of Huamanga, Cuenca, and Jaen de Bracamoros, with the thick forests of Guacabamba and Ayavaca, furnish the rest, which is shipped from species, it is proper to give some account of the geographical distribution of the Cinchonas. Besides the barks of Rio-bamba and Cuenca in Quito, Ayavaca, Huanuco, and Jaen de Bracamoros in Peru, and of New Granada, Cinchona barks have been procured at the northern extremity of South America near Santa Martha, and also as far south as La Paz and Cochabamba, within the viceroyalty of Buenos Ayres, now in the republic of Bolivia : thence the general localities of the true Cinchonas are Peru, Quito, New Granada, and Bolivia. Although the officinal barks are named in the London Pharmacopoeia from the form of their leaves, yet, as Humboldt justly remarks, "no tree varies more in the shape of its leaves than the cinchona;" and, in examining dried specimens, he who has not seen them in their native forests, "will be led to discover different species by leaves which are off one and the same branch:" a remark which I am enabled to confirm, by the extensive collection of dried specimens of the genus in my possession.