Flora Medica

CINCHONACE.&.COUTAREA.Tube of calyx turbinate ;limbG-parted. Corolla funnel-shaped,with a short tube, and a bluntly 6-lobed ventricose limb. Stamensinserted in the bottom of the throat ;anthers linear, exserted.Capsule coriaceous, obovate, ;compressed valves bifidat the apex. Placentae fungous, eventually nearly free. Wingsof seeds membranous. American trees. Leaves ovate. Flowerslarge showy.828. C. speciosa Aubl. guian.i. 314. t. 122. DC. prodr.350. Portlandia hexandra Jacq. amer. 63. t. 182. f. 20.iv.Swartz. fl.ind. occ. i. 385. Guayana, Cayenne, Trinidad,Spanish Main.An upright shrub, about 6 feet high according to Jacquin ; sometimes25 feet high with a trunk a foot in diameter, according to Aublet.Leaves ovate, entire, bluntly acuminate, veiny, smooth, stalked, opposite,about 5 inches long. Peduncles 3-flowered. Flowers sweet-scented,numerous, showy, pink outside, white and striped inside (purplishvioletAublet). Tube of the corolla very long, globose at the base : limb6-parted,with ovate, flat, spreading segments 3 times shorter than thetube. The Bark of French Guayana is said to be procured from thisshrub its ; properties are similar to those of Cinchona; but neitherAublet nor Jacquin mention this.CINCHONA.Calyx 5-toothed. Corolla hypocrateriform, with a 5-partedlimb, valvate in aestivation. Anthers linear, inserted within thetube, and not projecting, unless in a very slight degree. Capsulesplitting through the dissepiment into 2 cocci open at thecommissure, and crowned by the calyx. Seeds girted by amembranous lacerated wing.* #* This is probably the most important genus in the whole ofBotanical Materia Medica, as it has certainly been the source of moredisputing, confusion, misapprehension and misrepresentation than anyother medico-botanical question. The bark furnished by differentspecies is so exceedingly dissimilar in quality, and the consumption ofit is so enormous, that it has become a point of the greatest importanceto ascertain whence the finest qualities are to be procured, and how toavoid the inconvenience sustained by importations of a bad article.Many a merchant has sustained heavy losses by adopting the errors ofthose who have written on the subject. It is asserted by one class ofwriters that the barks of New Grenada, exported from Carthagena arethe same as those of Peru which reach Europe by way of Lima ; othersdeclare that the Carthagena barks are entirely different from those ofLima, and comparatively worthless. On the one hand we have theCollege of Physicians in the new edition of their Pharmacopoeia ascribingthe yellow, pale and red barks of the shops to the speciesdescribed under the names of C. cordifolia, lancifolia and oblongifoliain Mr. Lambert's Illustration of the genus on the other we have such;eminent pharmacologists as Pereira, Guibourt, and Wood and Bache406